Raisins & craisins on salads page

[tanyahk]

What are your thoughts on putting about 2tbsps of each on my big ass salad for lunch eat day? Too much? Too often? No big deal?

[TornadoGirl]

sugar rush...maybe as an occasional treat?

[lil_earthmomma]

I think it depends on your goals and how many carbs that shoots you up to.

[girl scout]

I wouldn't do it everyday. 4tblsp of dried fruit can add alot of sugar to your salad.

Although i'm with you on haveing a bit of sweet in there, I like to use small bits of fresh apple or strawberries. If you absolutly like dried fruit try currants. they are smaller and 1tblsp will go a long way. I use those in my curry chicken salad.

It also depends on you, are you trying to loose weight? Are you just maintaining? Are you trying to gain weight?

[Grumpycakes]

Make sure they're not covered in high fructose corn syrup.

[mizski]

Craisins have sugar added so I stay away from them. I do like a TBS of fresh (still nice and soft) jumbo raisins occasionally though. Because of the high sugar content in dried fruit you might want to cut down the raisins to about a TBS. Have you tried fresh blueberries in salad? They would be great substitutes for dried fruit in salads too.

[mm84321]

I never understood this. The texture of dried fruit in a salad just doesn't work for me. In oatmeal, however....

Before going primal, I would always slice up three dried calimyrna figs and throw them in a big bowl of steel cut oats before going out for a 7 mile run every morning. Now I avoid dried fruit completely.

[Adrianag]

I second the too many carbs in dried fruit and would cut back. A good trick with raisins is to cut them in half.

[carlh]

Make sure they're not covered in high fructose corn syrup.

My wife got a free bag of "apple chips" at work yesterday. They were covered in HFCS. She threw them out.

[BarbeyGirl]

Yeah, most dried fruits contain all sorts of preservatives and sugars -- in addition the the natural sugars. As others have said, the answer depends somewhat on your goals, but no matter who you are, a quarter cup of dried fruit daily adds up to a lot of sugar. Not ideal for health or leanness. An endurance athlete or even a very active person could probably "get away with it," but that still doesn't make it ideal. (If you're going to consume carbs, non-grain starches are preferable to sugars.)