At home many people avoid making salads because the cutting up of vegetables takes time and often storage of a half used cucumber or bag of carrots is inappropriate causing waste and unnecessary expense. To save time, why not just pick up prewashed, cut-up salads or salad green available pre-packaged at most grocery stores.

When choosing salad greens remember that the darker green the leaf, the more beta-carotene (an antioxidant). Spinach contains the most beta-carotene. For lettuce, try romaine, which has the most vitamins and minerals of all lettuces. Other options include Belgian endive, butterhead lettuce, collard greens, curly endive, escarole, kale, radicchio, red leaf lettuce and watercress. Lettuce also contains potassium, fiber, and vitamins C and A. The standard "iceberg" lettuce has the least nutritional value (but it is not true that it has NO nutritional value, it does contain folic acid, although the same amount of romaine lettuce has twice the amount).

Add protein to your salad with a light sprinkling of soy nuts, soy-bacon bits, or sunflower seeds. Top off the salad with chopped vegetables such as onions, peppers, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, or tomatoes. Also you can add shredded, low-fat cheese or thinly sliced lean meat. These too, can be cut up one night when you feel energized and put in storage bags for the rest of the week.

Salad dressing can make or break the salad. Salt and pepper or another spice may be sufficient to bring all the tastes together for a great salad. You can also just use olive oil and vinegar or salsa or one of the many low-fat dressing available at the store. Here is one