What is salad? Why should it be an essential ingredient of your meals? Oxford Advance Learners Dictionaries defines it as:

“The mixture of raw vegetables like tomato, cucumber, lettuce, that is usually served with other food as part of a meal.”

In the Indian subcontinent, a simple salad includes the ingredients of onion, green chili, tomato, cucumber, cabbage, mint, beet root, radish, carrot and bell pepper. Just crush them in long, cubic or rounded pieces and pile them as layers in a plate or dish.

There are hundreds of different types of salads specific to different countries, communities and regions in the world. Various categories include green salads, vegetable salads, fruit salads, meat salads, bean salads, seafood salads, pasta salads, egg salads, mixed salads, and so on. Each specific kind requires a set of ingredients in specific quantities.

The vegetables salads contain vegetables as their main ingredients while various types of fruits are used to make fruit salads. Some salads taste sweet while others are salty. In some cases, both sweet and salty ingredients are blended to give a mixed taste.

In addition to adding to the taste and delicacy of your meal, salads carry lots of health benefits. For example, if it contains raw vegetables, your blood will have higher levels of powerful antioxidants, including lycopene, folic acid, vitamin C and E, and alpha- and beta-carotene, etc. These antioxidants remove potentially damaging oxidizing agents from your body.

The use of salads not only helps you maintain a balanced diet but also provides your body with all the essential nutrients for healthy working and growth.

Salads made from vegetables and fruits are rich in fiber. Fiber, on the other hand, facilitates and regulates bowel movement along the lumen of digestive tract. It means, you should use them for the healthy functioning of your digestive system. The medical researchers have also discovered that use of fiber reduces the risk of cancer and other diseases of the gastrointestinal system.

Here you will learn about the easy recipes of different types of salads. Just go through them and find which one offers special appeal to your taste.