Wants and Needs Salad

-by Ani L from Whole Foods Market, Lake Calhoun

When it comes to food, we all have wants and needs. We’re hardwired, biologically, and then by marketing and advertising to seek out salty, fatty and sugary foods. Animals, including hunter-and-gatherer humans of past generations, taste plants to discover whether they were sweet (food) or bitter (poison). To them, sweet flavors indicated health and safety. This is very useful, if you’re in daily risk of ingesting deadly nightshade while hunting and gathering, but not when deciding between kale and cotton candy. Fatty foods like meat were sought out by hunters because meat had the highest caloric density of the foods available to them. And hey, if you’re going to spend all day running after a lion, you probably need the type of calories that lion meat can provide. But if you’re merely taking the occasional run from your cubicle to the water cooler, that caloric density isn’t necessary.

So naturally, as obtaining food becomes much more simple (no plant taste testing needed) and our lives generally much less physically taxing, our diet would change just as drastically as the rest of our lives have, right? Not so much. We’re hooked. We want that calorie dense food. Want- not need. The things that we do need to maintain a relatively low calorie expending lifestyle are not things we necessarily crave. I can’t think of the last time I became fixated on getting some B12 or really craved some flavonoids for dinner. So how do you get more things that you need without feeling deprived? Start wanting the foods that have them.

This means steering away from calorically dense foods and loading up on nutrient dense ones and finding different and interesting ways to enjoy them. Now since most nutrient dense foods do not come out of a box, bag or carton, this means that getting those nutrients can require investing a little bit of time in planning, grocery shopping and cooking. This is not something I have every day and I work at the grocery store! To make sure that I eat well, enjoy my meals and can sustain this all throughout the busy week, I keep a roster of meals in mind that can provide serious nutrition with a trivial amount of time investment. This brings us to wants and needs salad.

Salad is the poster child of healthy eating, but for me, traditional salad has one big downfall- no leftovers. One of the keys to healthy eating in my house is big batch cooking. We make soup, we eat one meal of soup, then we each have soup to take to work the next day that is nutritious, delicious and most importantly, ready in zero time. The same can be done with beans, grains, hot dish, and etc, but salad is just too delicate to hold up in the fridge for a couple days. Well, most salads anyway.

Meet Wants and Needs Salad. It is nutrient dense, plant strong, has some healthy fats and can sit, dressed, in the fridge for up to three days, saving time, waste, energy and money. It employs some of the best fruits and veggies of the season with some of my favorite year rounds flavors (which I want) and provides calcium, protein, Omega-3 healthy fats, fiber, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants (which I need). And now I need a fork, because I want to eat more of this salad.

Wants and Needs Salad

• 1 head dinosaur kale, washed and dried, stems removed, finely shredded
• 1 fennel bulb, sliced as thin as possible
• 1 carrot, peeled and shredded
• 2 shallots, peeled and minced
• A handful of chopped parsley
• 1 Pink Lady or other firm apple, finely chopped
• ½ cup pomegranate seeds
• Juice of one lemon
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon smooth Dijon mustard

Directions: Mix together lemon juice, vinegar and mustard with a fork in a large sealable container. Add all other ingredients and toss to coat. Before enjoying a serving, add:

• ¼ of an avocado, sliced
• 2 tablespoons roasted unsalted cashews
• 1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds
• Just a few grains of a crunchy salt such as Fleur de Sel or Sel Gris

Toss and enjoy. Makes four servings.