On my diet plan, I’m permitted miniscule amounts of “condiments.”
Salads are a challenge, or at first glance I thought they’d be. My favorite salad dresings are caesar and blue cheese. (I’ll state up front that in spite of its raging popularity since its 1973 invention, I think ranch dressing is a waste of good milk.)
So when I was facing a plate of cucumber, mushrooms and tuna that first Sunday night, I was thinking maybe I didn’t need anything else. And you know: tuna makes a passable salad dressing. Especially when you’ve subsisted on shakes, bars, and packaged soup all day. Lo and behold, here I am five days into the plan, and I haven’t dropped a drip of dressing on any of my greens. A few observations:
No matter how tasty prepared packaged food is (and some of it is) I find I really appreciate the taste of raw lettuce, unadorned with soy or whey or cellulose.
Steak and chicken also make excellent salad dressings.
I’ve never been much of a meat-eating guy. I prefer to have meat mixed with things like bread, rice, or cooked vegetables. That Monday night steak was more a sense of celebration when we treated the young miss to a birthday dinner.
On the other hand, once I mixed a fruit cup in a lettuce salad for dinner when the church ran out of dressings. That wasn’t bad: banana, pineapple, and grapes with bread.
Hmm.
Off ten pounds in six days, according to the crazy scale at the house. Is this worth it? Better be. Maybe I can combine that scrambled egg packet with the pancake packet and have crepes. I’ll have to eat them in two sittings, however.
3 June 2011 at 10:58 am
Not sure whether you’re trying to avoid carbs, calories or fat but good alternatives include non-fat sour cream, low fat yogurt, mustard, lemon juice and/or vinegar. With sour cream and yogurt, you can add whatever spices or herbs you like or some mustard or vinegar. If these are too thick you can thin them with a little vegetable broth or some other low calorie liquid. Also, don’t forget to season your salads. A little bit of kosher or sea salt goes a long way.
3 June 2011 at 11:34 am
Thanks, David. I just woke up from a nap where I spoiled my diet by eating crackers with bean dip. Bean dip? Not chicken tikka masala, pasta with clam sauce, or pollo michoacana?
Kosher salt–good idea.
3 June 2011 at 7:23 pm
A suggestion given by a Weight Watcher leader is to have the dressing on the side and dip your fork before you pick up the food. You get the flavor and not as many calories.