Niki Bezzant: How salad could be making you fat

Build it right and a salad bowl meal can be a hearty, healthful and nutritious option. Photo / Getty Images

Bowl food is all the rage. Check your Facebook or Instagram (where this trend arguably started) and if it's not gorgeously arranged in a rainbow of colours in a bowl, it's not fit to call itself a salad. Outside social media, in real life, poke places, raw food cafes and salad bars will happily create you a beautiful bowl, brimming with healthy-looking goodies.

I love a poke bowl myself. I've been working my way around the poke places in my neighbourhood, testing out the options. Poke - marinated fish atop rice, with salad and other toppings - originated in Hawaii, where it's a traditional dish. It's become popular here in the past couple of years.

I like making abundance-style salad bowls too, especially for lunch. They're a great way to make leftover bits and pieces feel special, and they're also excellent for getting a good range of vegetables into a lunch meal. Build it right and a salad bowl meal can be a hearty, healthful and nutritious option.

But there are some traps when it comes to salads and bowls; traps that could mean we're sabotaging ourselves, thinking we're eating a super-healthy option, but actually not.

Just leaves

Man (and woman) cannot live on leaves alone. While we might think of a salad as being a big pile of green, this is not going to give us much in the way of satiety - that satisfying feeling of being just full enough. If your salad lunch is mainly leaves with a few other veges and a bit of chicken tossed through, you're likely to be reaching for snacks to calm the hangry within a couple of hours.

So when it comes to a salad, abundance or poke bowl, make sure you balance it as you would any meal: include some healthy carbohydrate, a good amount of protein and half a plate of colourful vegetables, along with a little healthy fat (likely in the form of dressing). The ideal salad will have texture as well as flavour; so think about a few nuts and seeds for satisfying crunch, and some firmer veges like beans or broccoli.

Carb overload

Poke bowls are based on a grain - usually rice. Bonus points if you can get brown rice - this adds a bit of extra fibre - but keep an eye on the serving size. Some of the poke bowls I've tried have featured close to a cup of rice; a serving that would be fine for a big guy in a physical job, but far too much for a woman who spends most of her day sitting down. (A cup of cooked brown rice has 1070kJ or 256 calories; over half the kJ I'd want to eat for lunch. It also has 53g carbs).

Some carbohydrate is important in a meal, but look to keep rice servings around half a cup or so. A good option with poke is to ask for half salad, half rice. With other grains, the same rule applies. Keep it to a quarter of the plate.

Some carbohydrate is important - but look to keep servings down to avoid unwanted calories. Photo / Getty Images

Too much topping

A salad or bowl meal can be brimming with healthful ingredients, but it can be a health blowout if we don't take care with what we put on top. Oil-based dressings are fine, but keep in mind they're energy-dense; in other words they pack a lot of calories into a small serving. A tablespoon of a standard vinaigrette has about 450 kilojoules (100 calories); that's the same as a large banana (which you probably wouldn't put on your salad). Poke bowls often feature creamy, mayo-based dressings. Again there's nothing really inherently unhealthy about these (although some might be overly salty) but they pack a punch energy-wise.

So can some of the toppings on offer; a few nuts is good, but watch out for the deep-fried shallots, corn chips and other crispy bits that are sometimes on offer. You don't have to avoid dressing and toppings altogether. Some healthy fats are good, and important, in your bowl. I'd steer clear of coconut chips and flakes though, which are high in energy and saturated fat.

Keep in mind creamy, mayo-based dressings are energy-dense and pack a lot of calories into a small serving. Photo / Getty Images

Avocado bounty

There's no doubt a beautiful fan of avocado makes a bowl look insta-awesome. Avocados are great food, and totally delicious. While they're abundant and cheap, make the most of the avos. But as well as being full of satisfying fibre, healthy fat and other goodness, they are unique in the fruit world for being high in energy.

If you're looking to keep your lunch light, keep the avo serve moderate, too. I love mixing avocado into plain yoghurt to make a dressing; this gives a lovely avocado creaminess with less richness.

If you're looking to keep your lunch light, keep the avo serve moderate. Photo / Getty Images

• Niki Bezzant is editor-at-large for Healthy Food Guide . Follow her on Facebook or Instagram @nikibezzant