Good choices will give you a salad beautiful to look at and healthful to eat.
Darker green lettuces, like romaine, bibb and Boston, and leafy greens - like spinach, chard, collards, watercress and arugula - generally contain about twice as much folate and two to 10 times as much beta-carotene as iceberg lettuce, which has far fewer nutrients.
These leafy greens also have higher levels of other health-promoting carotenoids, vitamin C and other substances.
For color and taste as well as crunch, a red bell pepper, tomatoes and thinly-sliced green onions add far more nutrition and health-protective phytochemicals than the iceberg lettuce usually added for crisp texture.
Raw spinach is a good source of vitamin A as well as lutein and other carotenoids linked to eye health.
Both romaine and spinach are good sources of folate, a B vitamin that seems to lower the risk of at least some forms of cancer.
A cup of Boston or bibb lettuce provides three times as much vitamin A as iceberg.
Loose leaf lettuce is even richer in nutrients, offering six times the vitamin A of iceberg lettuce and a fair supply of vitamin C.
In the following salad, yogurt and feta cheese supply protein and calcium, rounding out the nutritional profile.
This spinach, red bell pepper and feta cheese salad with yogurt dressing is pleasing to the eye, the palate and your health.
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