Eating a salad or two each day is a great way to get more vegetables in your diet. The problem is, you may not be getting the full health effect of the greens and other veggies placed in your salad.
One of the key nutrients found in spinach, romaine and leaf lettuces, tomatoes and red peppers used in salads is beta carotene. However, these carotenoids require fat in order to be absorbed. So if you’re using a low-fat or no-fat salad dressing, it’s likely you’re missing out on the health benefits of these nutrients.
How can you get your body to absorb more of those nutrients without using fatty salad dressing?
Try adding two or three eggs as a salad topping. Research shows this will greatly enhance the absorption of these carotenoids.
“Our research findings support that people obtained more of the health-promoting carotenoids from raw vegetables when cooked whole eggs were also consumed,” states co-author Jung Eun Kim.
“Eggs, a nutrient-rich food containing essential amino acids, unsaturated fatty acids and B vitamins, may be used to increase the nutritive value of vegetables, which are under consumed by the majority of people living in the United States.”
In the study, 16 participants consumed three raw mixed-vegetable salads at different times. The first salad didn’t have any eggs in it. The second included one and a half eggs (75 grams). And the third salad contained three eggs (150 grams). The study used scrambled eggs to make sure the participants consumed both the yolk and egg whites.
Which salad produced the highest absorption rate?
It was the one containing three eggs. The absorption of carotenoids was three to eight times higher compared to the salad that contained no eggs.
“The lipids in salad dressings also increase the absorption of carotenoids but it is easy to overuse salad dressings and consume excess calories. Many salad dressings contain about 140-160 calories per serving, about two tablespoons,” says co-author Wayne Campbell, whose research also has looked at salads with different amounts of soybean oil, canola oil and butter.
“One large whole egg is about 70 calories and provides 6 grams of protein. People are at a greater risk of putting too many calories on a salad because they don’t always know proper portion sizes for salad dressings, but you do know the portion size of an egg.”
SOURCES:
Brown MJ, et al. Carotenoid bioavailability is higher from salads ingested with full-fat than with fat-reduced salad dressings as measured with electrochemical detection. Am J Clin Nutr. 2004 Aug;80(2):396-403.
Study: Top salads with eggs to better absorb vegetables’ carotenoids. News Release. Purdue University. June 2015
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