HOW on Earth is it that a well-known staple food in our healthy food lexicon has gotten a bad rap? Why, by piling it with a bunch of unhealthies that render its produce a nutritional no-no…unless, of course, the salad you eat is ours. Introducing…the TJS “Chewing Menu.”
So, a recent health headline that kinda made us take a step back was about how overrated salad is (or at least according to the venerable Washington Post). It was in this opinion piece by Tamar Haspel, a thoughtful journey who is well versed in writing about food, food supply issues, farming, and the like, and it made some freaking good points about how there are better ways to get our fruits and vegetables than the salad that society has taught is good for us.
Now. As with all opinion articles it’s important to absorb info with a colossal grain of pink Himalayan sea salt. But Haspel’s point was beeyond interesting: What we throw on a salad can weigh it down so much that our well-intentioned base of veggies we use for this so-called “healthy meal” get lost ‘neath a mountain of animal-based protein, processed add-ons and the crunchy, empty-calorie goodies that often come from factories, not nature.
Haspel even goes on to say that even without all the tasty bits and dressings that can cause more harm than good, the basis of our salads is often a pile of leafy greens with little to no nutritional value. It’d be one thing if we consistently veered toward spinach, kale and chard; but most folks build bowls with a pile of non-organic iceberg, which on the healthy-veg scale is low-low-low.
Harumph.
Does Haspel say we should all stop gettin’ our inner Peter Rabbit on as we graze on raw, gardeny goodness? No. But might the occasional salad of garden-grown greens with richly homemade buttermilk blue cheese dressing and thick-slab, non-hormoned bacon crumbled on top become something of a treat? It might. Beecause if we’re talking pure nutrition here—if we’re really trying to eat for fuel and energy, say, 80 percent of the time and maybe just for “fun” the other 20—there are better ways to get produce into your pretty little system.
Naturally, we’re about to offer up two winning ways to beat the conventional salad backlash. (And in case you were wondering, this absoLUTEly is the point in this post where TJS’s advice swoops in and saves the nutritional day. Ready? ‘Cause it’s happening now….)
1) DRINK your veggies via TJS cold-pressed juice.
2) Eat a salad…as long as it’s ours.
Fo’ sho’ you saw #1 coming. We’re pretty overt about reminding that you can drench your system with 2-3 pounds of organic produce any time you crack open a bottle of our cold-pressed juice. But our salad, you say? Wha?
Yes, Bees. We now have a new “Chewing Menu” that features among other items a field greens salad you may enjoy with a fork or make portable in the most delicious sun dried tomato wrap we’ve ever laid our lips on. Marcella’s and Jamie’s move toward a well-curated chewing menu is to help satisfy Bees’ needs for a nosh to go with a TJS juice. And an organic, thoughtfully crafted salad or wrap turns into near-Nutrition Perfection when washed down with even more produce.
Did y
ou see we mentioned “field greens?” Our salad and wrap do in fact have lettuce, which Haspel
says is, in fact, a banner way to get water into your diet. And when topped with things like raw and organic hemp or chia seeds; raw nuts; and salad dressings with an ingredients list that doesn’t read like the dictionary, a TJS Field-Greens Salad gets clean, organic roughage into your body very easily…and chewing roughage is as important as knowing when to give your digestion a rest by drinking your produce.
When it comes down to it, Bees, nutrition’s about balance. Just like knowing when to hold ‘em. When to fold ‘em. When to walk away and when to run like a mofo. So as you start seeing more and more salads on the farmers table at The Rose, or see folks leaving The Hive with takeaway containers that will give them a healthy lunch, if you find yourself hungry and you’re close by, grab a salad or wrap–maybe some banana leathers or dates filled with Marcella’s kickass cashew-walnut butter—and see how a clean, organic salad can make you feel as light and delicious as it tastes.
Sing it, Kenny.