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A Culinary Creation That Baffles The Human Mind

December 14, 2011   13 Comments

The taco salad is a relatively new invention which is Mexican inspired, but, in my opinion, has nothing to do with the great cuisine of Mexico. How could we go so wrong?

1000 Calorie Salad

Snack Girl's latest inspiration is a commercial for Bud Light - which features a taco salad. My pal Jason sent this over to me and I was just floored by how much I learned from it.

That's right, dear readers, I learned about the perversion that is a taco salad from Anheuser-Busch. Thank you, beer marketing people!

Here is the ad (which should make you smile):

My favorite line is, "I don't see no lettuce".

So, I went to Taco Bell to try a taco salad (photographed above) and while it wasn't 12,000 calories it was quite a few more than a salad should include.

Here are the nutrition facts for the Fiesta Taco Salad:
730 calories, 35 g fat, 70 g carbohydrates, 34 g protein, 9 g fiber, 1270 mg sodium, 19 Points+

A Quarter Pounder WITH cheese comes in at 680 calories. Wow, that did take a genius to manage to get something called a SALAD to have 35 grams of fat.

It is not fair to pick just on Taco Bell (though it is fun!). I saw a salad in Trader Joe's with a whopping 1200 calories in in it. Ahem, when you add cheese, ham, turkey, bacon, and blue cheese to a salad - you get a few extra calories (like 1000).

I am not the first person to admit that I have justified an extra cookie, brownie, or scoop of ice cream because all I ate for lunch was a SALAD. The term "salad" makes us think we are having something relatively healthy.

But, when you wrap small shreds of iceberg lettuce in a massive tortilla chip - you are losing the healthiness. Gone. phooey.

It tasted like a fatty, salt-filled bomb instead of a fresh, light, crispy, energizer that a REAL salad can be.

My advice is to wake up to the reality of food marketing. Those guys at Taco Bell (and Trader Joe's) just want to sell you more food. They don't care about your waistline or your risk for diabetes or heart disease. All they care about is profits and losses.

When you buy a pre-packaged salad, which SHOULD be a healthy choice, read the label and make sure you aren't being sold a "wolf in sheep's clothing".

Like an apple wrapped in caramel, or a potato that is deep fried, you can turn a healthy food into a unhealthy one.

Have you met some unhealthy salads?

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13 Comments:

This sort of thing is why I hit the salad bar(choose your own toppings) or buy just a premade fruit salad if I'm in that sort of situation.

Yikes!

Ha, Cheesecake Factory has salads that are over 1,000 cals. Their chicken caesar salad was something like 1,500? DANGER, DANGER!

Taco Bell is my caloric weakness. But it puzzles me why Chipotle is just as tasty and can do a "Burrito Bowl" the same way Taco Bell can and just eliminate the bowl and fill it with veggies, meat and even potatoes, meat and veggies.

The 1st clue that this was a diet disaster is just looking at that deep fried shell.

LOL i actually do order it once in a while because i love the chip tortilla so much :x but i did notice that after eating one of those, sometimes i don't feel too well...just due to how i eat i tend to cut out oil and fat in general out of my daily diet, so i guess a sudden intake of oil and fat didn't work so well...

it's still one of my guilty treats (sort of) though...when i really crave something, it's hard to resist.

but it works out i think as long as i remember it's a (massive) treat lol. my housemate said something that i really like "if i really crave something, I will eat it, because otherwise i'm going to keep thinking about it until i break down and ends up eating twice as much." and i really agree with her. it's much better to eat it once in a couple of months due to massive craving, vs pushing it off and pushing it off until i break down and eat it 3 nights in a row ^^;;

plus, i somewhat feel like it really is true that the more healthy you eat, the more you get used to it. last time i had that salad bowl, it didn't taste nearly as good as i had remembered it, and so i haven't even though about it for a while!

I'm actually making Taco Salad tonight! But mine consists of filling my entire plate with lettuce and then adding as toppings 150g of lean ground turkey, fat free salsa, 30g of cheese, and sometimes a dab of fat free (no copious amounts of sugar added) greek yogurt. (Although I think this is only available in Canada, this one http://www.presidentschoice.ca/LCLOnline/products.jsp?type=… is my favorite. I Remember reading a post on greek yogurt not too long ago)

I often make a taco salad at home for my dinner and it is delicious and filling. I have never figured out the caloric intake on it but this is what I put in it. I start with black beans on the bottom (I dont eat meat) and heat them up. I then add chopped up romaine lettuce a little bit of cheese and I get this fresh salsa at the grocery store that I love. I add some of that and a small amount of low fat or fat free sour cream. The last two items are actually the dressing. Once you mix it all up you dont miss the traditional dressing - it is really good!

I did a blog post on a healthy version of the afore mentioned taco salad. I used a whole wheat tortilla and baked it on an upside down bowl in the oven. Here's the link to my to my Taco Salad: http://healthytodayhealthytomorrows.com/?p=1454 :)

I love taco anything, but yes, you have to be careful that it isn't a calorie bomb. I like to fill my plate with lettuce and then add some black beans, homemade salsa, a little cheese, olives, and maybe some ground turkey. Then, add a few chips on the side. I love to make my own shell, you can do this by baking a tortilla into the bowl shape: find it here: http://www.food.com/recipe/how-to-make-baked-taco-salad-she… ENJOY!

I love the Chicken Fiesta salad from Taco Bell... that's what I get when I have to eat in a food court. However, I never actually eat the taco bowl... does the calorie count include it??

@Jill - the bowl is about 240 calories - good work not eating it!

ROFLMBO. that commercial is too funny. 1200 calories is my daily allowable intake. I've had taco salads before, but all that I have had have had heaps of lettuce at the bottom and then the meat, beans, cheese etc.

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