300-gram salad: the foundation of every day

Because this is the amount at which a meal feels like a meal.\n\nA piece of meat without a side dish is eaten in five minutes and leaves you feeling that you did not get enough. Three hundred grams of greens change that completely without adding any noticeable carbohydrates.\n\nThe second reason is fiber. Grains and fruit have left the diet, and there is little else to replace them. Salad plus two or three spoonfuls of flax or chia seeds settles this issue.

The base is leaves: lettuce, arugula, spinach, or any greens. Add whatever is available: cucumbers, bell peppers, cabbage, avocado, olives, and a reasonable amount of tomatoes.\n\nProtein goes on top or is served alongside: chicken, fish, eggs, or cheese. Then the salad stops being a side dish and becomes the meal itself.\n\nBy weight, 300 grams is a large bowl, not a small plate. The first time, weigh it to understand the scale.

Olive oil, apple cider vinegar, and salt. This is the method’s basic dressing, and it also covers part of the daily fat.\n\nStore-bought dressings are off the menu: hidden sugar is almost always in them. Homemade dressing takes a minute to make and keeps in a jar in the refrigerator for a week.\n\nA guideline for added oil is 10-20 g per day; that is the limit. Pouring dressing over the salad straight from the bottle “by eye” means exceeding it twofold.

Change not the leaves, but three things: acidity, fat, and crunch.\n\nAcidity: apple cider vinegar, lemon, or sugar-free balsamic vinegar. Fat: olive oil, avocado, cheese, or nuts within the limit. Crunch: cabbage, pepper, cucumber, or seeds.\n\nAny combination of these three gives a different flavor with the same ingredients. Looking for new recipes every day is a sure way to quit after a week.

Large amounts of raw greens are poorly tolerated with inflammatory bowel diseases and during flare-ups: the volume and cooking method should be discussed with a doctor, and some vegetables should be replaced with stewed ones.\n\nWhen taking anticoagulants, keep the amount of greens consistent from day to day and discuss it with a doctor: vitamin K affects how these medications work. With chronic kidney disease, the potassium content of greens may need to be limited.

Three hundred grams of greens is a large bowl, not a side-dish plate. The first time, weigh it, because almost everyone misjudges it by half when estimating by eye.\n\nIf counting by heads: approximately one large head of romaine lettuce, or two 150 g packs of ready-made mix, or a large bunch of greens plus a cucumber.\n\nReaching this volume at once is difficult if you used to eat few vegetables. Start with 150 g and increase it over the course of a week.

This is a foundation, not a strict requirement. The point is to keep fiber and volume in your diet consistently, not to check a box every day.\n\nIn winter, salad can be partly replaced with cabbage: it is cheaper, keeps better, and works just as well by volume. Stewed vegetables serve the same purpose when raw vegetables do not agree with you.\n\nWhat you should not do is eliminate vegetables entirely for “even fewer carbohydrates.” Fiber disappears with them, and the gut is the first to feel it.

Wash greens on the day you use them, not in advance. Wet greens in a container turn to mush in two days.\n\nWhat works: unwashed leaves in a container with a paper towel on the bottom, in the refrigerator. The towel absorbs excess moisture, and the greens keep for a week.\n\nIt is better to transfer salad from store packaging immediately: in a closed bag, it becomes soggy.