Most restaurants and fast food chains use iceberg lettuce in their salads, which really has no nutritional value anyway.  The dressings are what you really want to stay away from.  I prefer to make my own salads, with dark leaf lettuces and other veggies.  I use a really good homemade dressing on salads that uses organic extra-virgin olive oil, lemon juice, and basil.  Olive oil and balsamic vinegar also make a good dressing.    :O)  

Lies, lies, lies, and more lies.  These people have but one goal, and that is to separate you from your money.  As long as they get the money they care little about how they meet that goal.  You know buy cheap, sell high.  Good wholesome food does not play into this equation, because the good stuff costs too much, and would make fast food, not so fast.

Think about it likely GMO, and partically prepared food, meaning processed.  Here's to your health.

two oils I prefer, even to olive:  Coconut oil--delicious and you can use it anywhere.  Also Hempseed Oil,

you need nothing else....no mustard, custard, or vinegar and is the most tasty of all.  And it is so good for you they are most likely going to try to outlaw both of them   LLS

I haven't seen Lucy Locke for a while and I am very happy to see and hear her!!! Yeah Lucy!

I am eating out less and less these days, Love all the salad dressing suggestions!  cheers

I see no reason to buy salad dressing. I have not for so long that when I am served a commercial dressing, even one for the health food store, it tastes artificial. My standard is

olive oil

lemon juice

Dijon mustard

That's it. How hard is that? I keep my olive oil in the fridge and warm it under hot water to de-solidify it. I keep only a small amount, refreshed often, outside in a cruet for putting on bread or when cooking requires just a small amount.

I sometimes do make a week's worth of dressing and keep it refrigerated, but it's so easy to do it's not necessary. The French make the dressing right in the bottom of the salad bowl. Put in the olive oil, the lemon juice or vineager and a dab of mustard, mix with a fork and you're read to add the greens and other ingredients and toss.

Bon apetit!

aaaaaah the salad. It can be so right, it can be so wrong. They only came out with these "premium" salads in response to the book "Fast Food Nation" and the documentary "Super-size Me". As a youth pastor's wife I find myself ordering these salads from time to time when we are out with the youth. They don't bring enough money to go anywhere but McDonalds or someplace like that. So I order a salad, I've always been dissapointed then gone home and make one almost identical but sooooooo much better in taste & better for you.

Hmmmm, I think I'll make a salad for lunch. Romaine, tomatoes, avocado, cojita cheese, chipotle lime dressing. Mmmmmm.  

....It is OK to eat....A 'NAKED SALAD' ....It doesn't need dressing to protect it's dignity.

I find that you get used to it without...or add a little cottage cheese if you want moisture....the natural juice from a mandarin/tangerine/lime maybe?

.....mashed avocado with little of the former citrus options, plus some chopped fresh herbs..mmmm.also is good flavour and nutritious.

Does anyone out there know why McDonald burgers taste the way they do? I've been told that the beef is actually from retired dariy cows and not steers. Dairy cows have a lesser quality meat which is why dairy beef isn't sold in supermarkets. Can anyone confirm.

Has anyone researched the GMO products used in fast food salads?  Are they prepared fresh locally, or are they trucked in, already prepared?  If trucked, they would have to be shelf stable.  I think there's more to it than potato starch.  Hey, what about the eggs?  I think I'm gonna be sick!  I think the dressing is just part of the problem.

**What are they going to do?  Kill us all**, (Jewish midget: THE SHIP OF FOOLS)

I remember back in 1977 when I was a young upwardly mobile chum and I had started a new job I used to stop at Mcdonalds every morning for "breakfast". What a mistake that was. Ruining my nutrition in this manner led to poor job performance and the ruining of my career. Today I'm picking up the pieces.

Good to see you again, Lucy.

I have served our healthy family salad dressing to many hundreds of people over the last 40 years and have not yet had a negative response.  

Here is how:  Fresh ingredients are preferable, if you do not have a herb garden, a few pots in the kitchen window will supply all your needs.

For this dressing fresh garlic is essential, so you will need a garlic crusher.

Crush 1 or 2 cloves of fresh garlic into the salad bowl, add a pinch of salt (to taste) & grind together with the back of a spoon.  Add about 1 to 2 tablespoons pure virgin cold pressed Olive oil & mix well so that the garlic flavour mixes into the oil.

Add ½ - 1 T spoon Grape Vinegar & mix.  Lightly chop a hand full fresh oreganum leaves & stir into dressing, crushing it slightly to bring out the flavour. You can use dried herbs, but fresh is better.

To this dressing, which is adequate for a salad for 4 people, add your salad ingredients.

Remember to add a few sprigs of freshly picked & well washed parsley to the salad.  *** Enjoy!

Olive oil congeals when cold.   You can use it like that if you don't mind it in chunks.  Flaxseed oil goes rancid so fast it must be refrigerated at all times and even then might go rancid.

How do you use coconut oil as a dressing?

No one has even mentioned the fried chicken and chips, cheese and bacon that are included inthe mouth watering selections!  As if the anemic looking toamato, carrot shredds and iceberg weren't good enough by themselves!!

The big mac is probably better for you!!

Lucy forgot to mention the buffets and similar restaurants that add all sorts of fillers to their food that have almost no nutritional value.  I still remember this one in my area called "kings table" in my younger days.  They used all kinds of breadings to encrust the fried foods (BTW: it was easy to tell how many months old the oil in their deep fryer was getting).  They also used tons of bread and margerine in their desserts like bread pudding (I swear I could taste the mold in that industrialised pudding).  Ten years later, they're out of business for lack of cleanliness.  I believe there was a crawling, mucky, syrupy encrustation originating from the niche where "Kings table" used to be, so they knocked down the entire shopping center.  I think a proper, high pressure steam cleaning would have done the job.

Speaking of "fluffy" along with water, salt (high blood pressure inducing), acralymide rendered hygrogenated (cancer causing at any ingestion level) deep fried oils and the food placed in them, and cardio vascualr and obesity inducing High Fructose Corn Syrup; AIR is indeed a huge PROFIT center in the soda (C02) and fast/junk food business (Pringles is carboard technology originally from Proctor & Gamble makers os anal leakage and fail Olean Brand Olestra that is nothing more than hydrolyzed mineral oil) to SUPER SIZE your body, and SHORTEN your life span.

Read FAT LAND: How America Became The Most Obese Nation by Greg Critser, SWEET DECEPTION by Dr. Joseph Mercola and SUGAR SHOCKED by Connie Bennet & Dr. Sinatra.

To YOUR  Good Health!

Uncle Russ

Amanda, thanks for the info ... your mom does not say if the dressing should be stored in the refrigerator. I use Bragg's Apple Cider dressing and keep it in the cupboard because the olive oil sort of solidifies. Wondering. If you add fresh lemon - then maybe you must refrigerate??

Better still, make your own salad. Once I learned how to make salad dressing, salads have become such an easy answer for me. We do have a number of salad dressing recipes we use here at home, but mostly I just follow some of my mom's wisdom on which oils and vinegars go with what. I had her write it up:

www.rebuild-from-depression.com/.../saladdressing.html

Selecting greens:

www.rebuild-from-depression.com/.../saladgreens101.html

Handling salad greens:

www.rebuild-from-depression.com/.../handlinggreens.html

It's ten minutes of preparation if you have the items on hand and travels well.

Amanda