We’re all looking for the best and easiest way to lose weight and live a healthier lifestyle. Obviously, the first thing we do is start watching what we eat. We make changes in the types of food we put into our mouths. Instead of beer and pizza, we opt for water and a salad. After all, salad is the best diet food of all the diet foods, right? Well, that isn’t exactly true.

Salad is great for you. The Department of Health recommends we eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day and what better way to do that than a salad. A salad gives us the opportunity to meet those recommendations all at once.

Unfortunately, that lets some of us use that as an excuse to pig out during our other two daily meals. Others go overboard on salad toppings make it even worse for you calorie wise than something off the menu of a fast food store.

As you can see, there are some facts about salads that many of us just aren’t aware of. All we know is that we are supposed to eat them. Here are some of the more common misconceptions we have about eating a salad and the true facts behind them.

• Myth: It’s only a salad – What do you think has more calories a bacon cheeseburger or a salad with ranch dressing? The answer is the salad. Surprised? A salad can be loaded in calories if you don’t watch what you put into it and what you put on top of it. All of those different toppings can add up to an alarmingly high calorie total.

• Myth: The healthiest dressing is fat-free – You’re fooling yourself into believing this little lie. While yes, you do save some calories by using non-fat but a lot of those dressings have a good amount of sugar in them. They offer you no nutritional benefits whatsoever. They, also, block your body’s ability to absorb antioxidants from salad greens and tomatoes. In a recent health study, doctors found that people eating full of fat salad dressing absorbed twice the nutrients of those using reduced fat dressing.

• Myth: Lettuce Is Lettuce – Some lettuce is better for you just as there are some types of lettuce which taste better. Arugula and watercress lettuce are great for you and full of cancer fighting compounds. There was a chemical found in watercress lettuce that is shown to deactivate one of the cancer causing toxins in tobacco smoke. Spinach is another nutrionally great type of lettuce because of its supply of cancer fighting lutein. Some of the versions of kale, mustard greens, and turnip greens are not as sharp, tough, and bitter and are outfitted with the cancer fighters. The more popular light greens, such as iceberg and endive, are nutrition duds.

• Myth: It isn’t all about the green – Add a little bit of color to that all green salad. Colorful vegetable salads offer you a great source of phytonutrients. Powerful antioxidants in purplish vegetables such as eggplant will reduce heart disease risk and improve brain function. A radish is a great cancer fighter too. Red tomatoes are linked to lower risk of heart disease and cancer.

• Myth: Beans, beans, the magical fruit… - A quarter cup of beans will provide you with roughly four grams of protein which is not enough for your daily requirement. Doctors recommend a third of every pound of body weight should be consumed everyday. You’ll get a good deal more by using a three-quarter’s cup of beans plus some chopped eggs and some shredded cheese on your salad instead.

• Myth: If I eat low calorie celery, then I can load up on blue cheese – Well, celery is a great snack food for you to eat if you are watching your diet. That doesn’t give you the excuse to add all sorts of high calorie and bad for you toppings like blue cheese to the mix. What’s wrong with enjoying the celery as it is?