Although I wouldn't usually say that I'm a person who is constantly on a diet, I am a person who is always very conscious of the food that I eat. I make sure that the types of food, kinds of food, and amount of food that I eat on any given day is as healthy as possibly without going too overboard. Since I'm not really a fan of typical health food, I tend to enjoy having the foods that I like to eat, but just in moderation. That way, I can have things like pizza, pasta, or cookies...as long as it's one slice of pizza, one dish of pasta, and just a cookie or two. I've learned over the years that if you flat-out starve yourself or deny yourself your favorite foods and a treat from time to time, you will grow to hate eating healthily and then resent the whole process. As a person who likes to eat healthy, I like to take basic healthy foods and spice them up a little bit. There isn't a meal that can get much more healthy than a big salad for lunch or dinner. A lot of people make a mistake in thinking that if they are eating a salad that they can pile it high with cheeses, bacon, olives, and fatty dressings...but we all know that that is just defeating the entire purpose of having a salad. Sure, have a little bit of cheese, a teaspoon of bacon bits, and low-fat dressing. If you have higher calorie and higher fat foods in moderation, you are still having the taste, but you're not gorging yourself in the process.

The main issue that I have about salads and eating out in a healthy way in general is the amount that it costs to do so. I know that if I want to have a salad for dinner at home that I can go to the grocery store and get a bag salad (very convenient) and all the necessary salad-making materials for less than ten dollars. Keep in mind that if you buy things like croutons, dressing, a pepper, a tomato, etc., you end up with enough materials for more than one salad and thus more than one meal, so the cost of your individual salad for dinner is way less than ten dollars to start off with. Knowing this, I find it very difficult to go out to a restaurant and order a salad for dinner. I simply don't see how something that costs perhaps around five dollars or so to make and prepare can cost upwards of twelve, fifteen, or even twenty dollars in some restaurants. This fact just blows my mind when I go out to certain restaurants. Sure, I understand that restaurants need to charge a somewhat comparable price to the other entrees on the menu, but charging the same amount for a chicken caesar salad as you do for a sirloin steak and mashed potatoes is pretty ridiculous. What's more is that when you order a salad for your entree, you obviously aren't getting those "extras" in restaurants like a side salad and other side dishes. Therefore, that fact jacks up the profit that restaurants make on salad even higher. It's like the restauranteurs are monetarily punishing people for trying to watch their calorie intake. I surely don't want to pay a ton of money for less food that took less time and less effort to prepare. I just doesn't make sense. Sometimes when I go out I just can't even bring myself to want to order a salad, so then I end up opting for something less healthy that I don't even really want. Even then, if you want to even attempt to be semi-healthy, restaurants will charge extra money to substitute a turkey burger or veggie burger for a regular burger. They will even sometimes charge extra to substitute steamed vegetables or a side salad for fries or chips. In some chain type restaurans where things are prepared in advance (yuck!) I can more or less understand the inconvenience of a subsitution, but if you're going out somewhere and you're goin to pay twenty dollars for your entree, you should at least be able to choose the healthy option for a side dish to go along with it. I think that by far the most ridiculous price add on for a menu substitution that I've ever seen was a fifty cent charge to have your sandwich on wheat toast as compared to old boring white bread. Another one that really miffs me is the thirty-nine cent charge to have a particular sandwich at Quizno's subs on a bread other than the one that it "comes with" on the menu. Absolutely ridiculous!