The Salad is the Main Dish!

I have been reading Dr. Joel Fuhrman's Eat to Live and one of the things that he said that really struck me was make salad the main dish. It got mt thinking about the way I plan my meals...always around the main dish, which is almost never a salad. The salad is usually an afterthought. So then I thought, what if I planned my meals around my salad?

As soon as I shifted my thinking, this delicious salad popped into my head. This salad is an all-time favourite. My daughter even made up a song about this salad which we affectionately called, "the Mango song." My daughter has received numerouse requests for the song she used to sing as a toddler picking the mangos right out of the salad singing, "mango, mango, mango song."

Here I have created the mango salad with red and green leaf lettuce, mangos and a small sprinkling of feta cheese and pecans. Now, I have lots of room for improvement because Dr. Fuhrman certainly wouldn't advocate any animal products and I sprinkled my salad with feta cheese. Also, he certainly wouldn't approve of the amount of oil in this dressing. Good nutrition is always a process, so all in good time. Here is the recipe for the dressing. The dressing is taken from Rose Reisman's The Art of Living Well. The dressing really makes this salad.

Dressing
2 tbsp. balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 tbsp. honey
2 tsp. sesame oil
1 tsp. minced garlic

In a small bowl whisk together vinegar, olive oil, honey, sesame oil and garlic. Pour over salad.

Dr. Joel Fuhrman advocates a diet rich in whole fresh fruits and vegetables. He argues that most vegetables contain more nutrients per calorie than any other food and are a rich in all necessary amino acids. Apparently, of any beneficial food, raw vegetable consumption showed the strongest protective effect against cancer. Fuhrman sites leafy greens such as romaine lettuce, kale, collards, swiss chard and spinach as the most nutrient-dense of all foods.

So, eat your salads! Plan your meals around them!