A salad can be a wonderful meal full of vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients. But selecting the wrong items from the salad bar can give you more calories and fat than a burger with fries. Follow these tips for a healthy soup and salad:

• Use fat-free salad dressings or vinegar.
• Choose tossed salad rather than mayonnaise-based salads, such as coleslaw or potato salad.
• Avoid topping your salad with eggs, imitation cheese, or bacon bits. Use raisins or croutons.
• Eat low fat crackers or saltines instead of club. Four club crackers have 4 grams of fat compared to only 1 gram of fat found in 4 saltine crackers.
• Top your salad with beans (kidney or garbanzo) to increase protein.
• Add low-fat cottage cheese to your salad for extra calcium.
• Choose broth or tomato-based soups containing noodles, rice, or vegetables instead of cream or cheese-based soups.
• Choose yeast breads such as rolls, French bread, Melba toast, or bread sticks.