In our science of raw food nutrition classes, Rick and I cover a number of interesting topics related to raw food and health. In level one of our series, I show our students an example of the type of salad that Rick and I eat. Usually, a good number of the students are amazed at its size. Many people, even within the raw food community, are not used to eating large amounts of vegetables and I can certainly understand why. Before I started on my raw food path over 20 years ago, the amount of salad that I was used to eating was the size of a typical dinner salad:
As you can see, my salad WAS composed of about 1 cup of lettuce (usually iceberg) with a slice of tomato (usually unripe), a couple rings of onion, drowned in thousand island or some other commercial type of dressing (to give it some taste :)), all of which halfway filled an average cereal bowl. Does this sound familiar?
When I started eating more raw produce, I found that my old salad paradigm needed a makeover, since I found myself very hungry after eating such a small salad. I saw the amounts of vegetables that other raw food enthusiasts were eating in their salads and made some modifications. Now, I typically eat anywhere from 4 cups of lettuce to one head in my salad on most days. There are many types of lettuce, so for the sake of simplicity I will talk about Romaine lettuce for the remainder of this post.
4 cups of chopped Romaine lettuce is a little less than ½ of a medium to large head, 7 cups is approximately ¾ of a head, and 10 cups is equivalent about one head. Many people over the years have mentioned that they do not eat lettuce, because they have been told that lettuce does not contain many nutrients. Let us take a look at the nutrient content of Romaine lettuce in the amounts that we have mentioned:
A sampling of nutrients found in one cup of Romaine lettuce:
| 1 cup Romaine lettuce | Adult Daily Values | |
| Calories | 8.0 | |
| Calcium | 15.51 | 1000 – 1200 mg |
| Iron | 0.46 | 8 – 18 mg |
| Zinc | 0.11 | 8 – 11 mg |
| Alpha-linolenic Acid | 0.05 g | |
| Protein | 0.58 g |
A sampling of nutrients found in four cups of Romaine lettuce:
| 4 cups Romaine lettuce | Adult Daily Values | |
| Calories | 32.0 | |
| Calcium | 62.0 | 1000 – 1200 mg |
| Iron | 1.82 | 8 – 18 mg |
| Zinc | 0.43 | 8 – 11 mg |
| Alpha-linolenic Acid | 0.21 g | |
| Protein | 2.31 g |
A sampling of nutrients found in seven cups of Romaine lettuce:
| 7 cups Romaine lettuce | Adult Daily Values | |
| Calories | 56 | |
| Calcium | 108.6 | 1000 – 1200 mg |
| Iron | 3.19 | 8 – 18 mg |
| Zinc | 0.76 | 8 – 11 mg |
| Alpha-linolenic Acid | 0.37 g | |
| Protein | 4.05 g |
A sampling of nutrients found in ten cups of Romaine lettuce:
| 10 cups Romaine lettuce | Adult Daily Values | |
| Calories | 80.0 | |
| Calcium | 155.1 | 1000 – 1200 mg |
| Iron | 4.56 | 8 – 18 mg |
| Zinc | 1.08 | 8 – 11 mg |
| Alpha-linolenic Acid | 0.53 g | |
| Protein | 5.78 g |
As one can see, the nutrient content adds up as one eats more lettuce. In significant amounts, Romaine lettuce can make a significant nutrient contribution to one’s salad, and with the addition of other foods to this salad, the nutrient content will increase. In other words, it all adds up. 🙂
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