The BEST salad EVER

Salad: It can be both your best and worst enemy when striving towards good nutrition as a lifestyle.  So many people believe they are doing good by ordering the salad selection rather than a sandwich or other entree when in fact, the opposite is true in many restaurants.

Take for example the Bistro Chicken Salad at Einstein Brothers....a salad I used to frequent in my not-so healthy days....but I believed it was healthy.  Thus my lesson to everyone in becoming an informed consumer...don't just 'think' its healthy because it's choc full of greens, read and research.  My beloved Bistro salad from days past packs a whopping 940 calories and 71 grams of FAT!  71 grams!  Yikes!!  Then there is the Grilled Shrimp and Spinach Salad at Applebees - sounds harmless right?  WRONG: 1,050 calories!!  In a salad!  You are much better off making a salad at home and you can add a lot more fresh ingredients to your salad at home.

I have tons of great salad recipes - some I will save for later :-)  But today I am posting the mother of all salads that is so flavorful, nutrient rich and colorful it will make you crave it all day long!  The crunch is out of this world!  I created it as part of my raw foods cleanse, however, I will continue eating it and add proteins in once my cleanse is over.  I will include protein in this recipe:

Ingredients:
1.5 cups of Spring Mix or Romaine mix
5 cherry tomatoes chopped
1/4 cup chopped zucchini

1/4 cup red bell pepper chopped
1/4 cup banana pepper chopped
1 individual cup Dole No Sugar Added Mandarin Oranges in own juices
1/4 of an avocado chopped
1/2 cup fresh sugar snap peas
4 ounces rotisserie chicken
Italian Seasoning
Apple Cider Vinegar

Directions:  Place all ingredients in a medium size bowl and sprinkle with Italian Seasoning.  For Dressing, pour the juice from the mandarin orange cup into container and top with 1-2 TBS of apple cider vinegar.  Pour mixture over salad - ENJOY!

Nutritional Info:

Calories	334
Fat	10.9g (All mono and poly - no saturated)
Carbs	32g
Protein	28g
Fiber	11g