You think you're being so virtuous by making a salad for lunch or dinner. A handful of iceberg lettuce, topped with potato salad, grated cheese, croutons, and a generous serving of creamy salad dressing. Before you dive headfirst into that salad, though, consider this: Those seemingly innocent toppings can add up to more calories, carbohydrates, and saturated fat than a drive through the golden arches hamburger!

Sandra Woodruff, MS, is a registered dietician in Tallahassee, Florida, and the best-selling author of numerous books on nutrition, cooking, and healthy eating including The Good Carb Cookbook, Secrets of Good-Carb/Low-Carb Living, and The Complete Diabetes Prevention Plan.

"Made properly, a salad provides lots of volume for relatively few calories," says Sandra encouragingly.

The secret to success: "Enjoy generous portions of spinach, lettuce, and other salad veggies like carrots, broccoli, mushrooms, cucumber, radishes, peppers, and onions. Use lower-fat cheeses and dressings."

To add variety, try using frozen or canned vegetables. For example, you can add some corn and black beans to lend a Tex-Mex flair to salads, artichoke hearts and garbanzo beans for Mediterranean flair, and edamame for Asian salads. "Frozen (lightly cooked) vegetable blends such as Birds-Eye broccoli, cauliflower, and snow pea pods or baby mixed beans and carrots also make delicious salads," according to the registered dietician.

If you're worried that frozen veggies are not as healthy as fresh vegetables, relax. "In 1998, the Food and Drug Administration compared the nutrient profiles of fresh, frozen, and canned produce. They concluded that frozen and canned vegetables are nutritionally comparable to the raw versions and would likely provide the same health benefits," reports Sandra. In fact, in some cases, frozen and canned vegetables contained higher levels of certain nutrients than fresh because fresh produce is vulnerable to nutrient losses under certain storage conditions.

What's a salad without the dressing? You can make your own, using mainly vinegar mixed with a tablespoon of good-for-you olive oil and herbs. Or choose your favorite flavor in a low-fat or fat-free brand. My personal favorite: Walden Farms salad dressing.

Calorie-free, carb-free, sugar-free –- and taste-full! My favorite Walden Farms flavors include blue cheese, 1,000 Island, and Italian. In addition to their bottled dressing, Walden Farms now produces individual packets of zero-calorie, sugar-free salad dressing, perfect for slipping into your purse and toting to a restaurant or just using at home to measure out your dressing.

If you love spicy toppings, skip the flavored croutons. Substitute salsa for a zesty, low-calorie, low-carb treat. Another topping to try: a spoonful of sauerkraut, which is low-calorie, low-carb, and high in taste value. If you long for buttery croutons, try taking a butter-flavored rice cake and crumbling it over your salad. Or, if you're on a low-carb diet, crumbled pork rinds can add that wonderful crunch to your plate.

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