The Salad Green Blues

I don't usually read the food section of the newspaper because after decades of slinging hash I enjoy spending less time in the kitchen. But yesterday, I found myself pulled in by a piece that trashed, of all things, lettuce!

The author, Tamar Haspel, was not subtle: "Lettuce is a vehicle to bring refrigerated water from farm to table," she began, explaining that the crop is 96 percent water. Then she launched into a discussion of why eating salad was bad for the planet (it consumes too many resources in exchange for too few calories and nutrients) and bad for us (it provides a halo effect for all the less healthy stuff we mix in with it — croutons, fried chicken strips — and is more likely to make us sick, since it can be contaminated with food-borne pathogens and we eat it raw). It's not that we shouldn't eat salad, she concludes, but that we should realize it's a luxury to do so. 

As a person who builds many meals around salads (albeit forgoing iceberg lettuce, the most watery of salad greens), and who has sought them in vain in countries where food isn't as abundant, I have to say that her piece was an eye-opener. I won't be giving up my baby romaines and arugula anytime soon ... but I'll try to include even more beans, nuts and other nutritious add-ons when I eat them.