For a healthy salad, avoid fatty dressings

DELICIOUSLY COOLING on summer days, salads can be as light and simple as Romaine lettuce tossed with vinaigrette, or as chic and filling as grilled chicken with endive, blue cheese, dried cranberries and walnuts.

A smartly made salad can stoke your energy, reduce your risk of heart attack, stroke, cancer and arthritis, and help manage weight. But an overdressed salad can pack more calories than a Big Mac and fries.

Inventing tasty, healthy salads is a matter of selecting the best, most nutrient-dense ingredients. With a few tips, you can unlock the secrets to adding healthy fats, which boost vitamin absorption, and to adding protein to make your salad the main part of your meal.

Weight-conscious folks might be glad to learn that eating a light salad as a first course curbs appetite. People who started a meal with a light salad ate 7 percent to 12 percent less of the rest of the meal, and they ate fewer calories overall, according to a study in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.

The best ingredients

The most basic salad consists of some type of vegetable, such as lettuce or sliced tomatoes, and a dressing. To maximize nutrition, try adding a variety of colors and tastes, and you'll receive a wider range of nutrients.

Traditional salads are based on the greens. Darker green lettuces like Romaine and red-leaf lettuce have more nutrients than paler lettuces like Iceberg. Get creative by trying fancy mesclun lettuces, shredded green or red cabbage (both packed with even more cancer-fighting nutrients than lettuce), or peppery greens like arugula.

Greens provide beta carotene, which is important for skin, eyes and the immune system. Greens also provide minerals such as iron, magnesium and zinc.

For a healthier salad, add a rainbow of other colors to the greens. (Or, you can skip the green altogether and start with other colors.) The more colors you pick, the more cancer-fighting phytonutrients, or natural plant substances, you will have.

Consider adding delicious red veggies such as sliced, vine-ripened tomatoes or sweet grape tomatoes. They're rich in lycopene, which is good for the heart and--for men--the prostate gland.

Fresh or marinated red peppers, rich in beta carotene, and crunchy sliced radishes are two other favorite red vegetables.

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