By Pam Turman

Salad is a great, versatile way to get healthy nutrients from various sources.

You still have to watch the calories, though. Too much salad dressing or adding too many high fat foods to your salad can turn your low calorie salad into a high calorie meal.

Unfortunately, salad dressings are loaded with fat. Watch the low-fat salad dressings, too. They also contain some fat. What makes them even worse is that they ‘re often loaded with unhealthy sweeteners like high fructose corn syrup to make up for the flavors lost when they take out the fats.

So be aware of what you put on your salad.

Tip 1: Instead of adding croutons, processed meats or drowning your salad in dressings try adding new things like fruit to your salad. You may be pleasantly surprised. Adding fruit to your salad is a great way to get naturally sweet and refreshing flavors.

You’ll find that you need less or no dressing when you add mandarin oranges or pineapple chunks since they have so much flavor and juice already. A favorite of mine is to add almond slices, mandarin oranges, and grilled chicken breast or tuna fish (no mayonnaise needed).

Tip 2: Try adding a bit of low fat cottage cheese on top of your salad. It’s packed with calcium and is low in calories.

Tip 3: A few years ago I stopped using regular salad dressing except on rare occasions. I use lemon juice or balsamic vinegar, or both. Balsamic vinegar has a pleasantly sweet tanginess. It goes well on most anything, especially a salad. Balsamic Vinegar and lemon juice are both very healthy substitutions for salad dressing.

Tip 4: The more colorful your salad is, the more nutrients it has. It also makes the salad more appealing and fun to eat. So experiment with your salad and fill up on that calorie free lettuce. The darker lettuces such as Romain, red leaf, green leaf or the spring mixes are packed with the most nutrients. Also, raw spinach added to the lettuce is a great source of vitamins and calcium.

The lighter lettuces such as iceburg lettuce contain the least. Lettuce is good for you, its low in calories and it can really fill you up.

Tip 5: Stock your fridge with plenty of fun and colorful veggies and fruits to experiment with when you are making your next salad. If it’s easy to prepare, you are more likely to make a salad. I like to pre-cut my veggies and I purchase the mini carrotts, unsalted sliced almonds and the single serving cans of madarin oranges and pineaple tidbits. I store all of these along with my tuna in the refrigerator so that it takes less time to prepare my salads.

Tip 6: If you like to add eggs to your salad, try hard boiling a bunch of eggs ahead of time so you have them ready to use at a moments notice.

If you have any allergies to anything I have mentioned here, then find what works for you and enjoy your salad in a fresh new way.