Citrus Spinach Salad with Pomegranates and Walnuts
By: Roni | Posted in: 3 WWPP, 6 WWP, 8 WWPP, By NEW points, Food Photos, Lunch Ideas, Salad Ideas, Vegetarian Ideas | 20 Comments
If you read my weight loss blog you may have caught my recent obsession with grapefruit. I’ve been enjoying them straight up almost every morning but yesterday I took the leap and used one as inspiration for a new salad idea.
Last week Dottie shared this technique to "Supreme a Grapefruit." I never honestly thought cutting a grapefruit this way. It opens up a whole world of possibilities!
At first I thought I’d make a simple citrus salad using an orange and grapefruit, then I remember I just bought some fresh spinach and a pomegranate. Why not make a fruit based spinach salad? The juices from the citrus were the perfect "dressing" on the spinach eliminating the need for anything additional making this a super light salad with TONS of flavor.
Here’s what I did…
- 1 Ruby Red grapefruit
- 1 Orange (I used a honeybell)
- About 1 1/2 cups of raw spinach leaves.
- 1 oz (28g) Pomegranate
- 1/2 oz (14g) Walnuts
Using the method outlined on this site section the grapefruit and orange. It makes a mess…
but it’s surely worth it!
Pile the spinach on a plate. Top with the grapefruit and orange slices. Sprinkle on the pomegranate and walnuts or have your helper do it..
Enjoy! After you take pictures with goofy child that is.
Little man helped me make the salad but I couldn’t get him to eat anything but the pomegranate. Here he is stealing one during our photo shoot.
A few things about this salad before I go. I’m listing it as 1 serving but it can easily be shared as a more side dish idea. Nutritionally it’s a power house! According to NutritionData.com…
"This food is low in Saturated Fat, and very low in Cholesterol and Sodium. It is also a good source of Dietary Fiber, Folate and Manganese, and a very good source of Vitamin A, Vitamin C and Vitamin K."
However the new PointsPlus are stumping me again. If I enter in the Nutritional information I get 8 BUT the whole salad is made up of "free" foods except for the walnuts which would only be 3. So I’m thinking it’s 3 but I’d really like Weight Watchers to clear up what the official "ruling" is. It seems the healthier my recipes get the more discrepancies there are.
UPDATE: Click here to see what Weight Watchers has to say about the PointsPlus discrepancy.
| Servings | Amt per Serving | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | entire recipe | |||
| Calories | Fat | Fiber | WWPs | |
| 300 | 10 | 10 | old: 6 | new: 3 or 8 |
| Sugar | Sat Fat | Carbs | Protein | |
| 33g | 1 | 53g | 7g | |
Other ideas you may enjoy... |
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Whooo! This looks delicious!
What a delightful, colorful, healthy salad. Can’t wait to try it!
I agree on the confusing “free” foods. I totally understand which fruit and vegis are “free” but when I saute zucchini, onion and carrots together in 1 tsp of olive oil, I only count the oil… even though I have 2 1/2 cups of vegis! I make it two servings and move on.
When I am cooking, I simply leave out the “free food” in my calculations for points… but I do run them for the “fiber” content, because I strive for quite a bit of fiber per day… (natural kind, not the “add to icecream to lower the points kind)
I have increased my fruit and fresh vegis since doing the points plus – but, I the point totals still freak me out a bit. I have to get used to the adjusted numbers… but I think it will work out fine.
I would only count the 3 points for the walnuts.
I really don’t understand why that salad isn’t free except for the nuts. Either fruits and veggies are zero or they aren’t; I wish they would make up their minds. It’s so frustrating.
I totally agree! At least with the old points the discrepancies weren’t so big. If I did add the veggies to a recipe it would maybe be off 1 point but 5?!? That’s crazy! And if you put it in the recipe builder it says…
orange = 0
grapefruit = 0
total points for recipe = 4
as I build it.
I get the “use your best judgement” aspect but I’d like to know what the official WW policy is. Are they supporting the “don’t add free fruit and veggies to recipe builder” technique? It doesn’t really matter, I’m going to eat it anyway but I know so many WW members will get frustrated and walk away because these new points aren’t as intuitive as the old.
I has the same issue last week. I made a smoothie and put it in the recipe builder. The first ingredient I added in the tool was a banana, and the point total was already 3! Ummm I thought they were free! Please keep us posted on what you hear from Weight Watchers. I ended up adding each ingredient separately in by tracker rather then using the recipe builder.
So yum! I need to break into my pomegranates and make something like this. :)
My personal opinion about the salad “recipe” and PP values is that if it’s made up of a great deal of free foods and very little non-free (ie. some nuts being the only non-free), I’d just account for the nuts. If I was making a more ingredient-dense recipe where half the ingredients were free and half were a bit pointy (like a veggie-filled lasagna), I’d go for what the Recipe Builder says, accounting for the NI for everything, including the “free” items, because it doesn’t make a big difference in the overall calculation anyway. Because like you always say, people aren’t walking into to WW because they ate too many grapes. But too much cheesy pasta drenched in veggie-liscious marinara? Ehh, maybe.
I would love to hear WW’s official stance on this. I’m not putting the free foods into the recipe builder, because free is free…right? Even in a veggie filled lasagna, the veggies are free, calculate the cheese & pasta & the veggies are 0 points+. If you do get anything back from WW please share it with us!
Will do. Once I get the low down I’m going to write a post about it on RonisWeigh.com
I am confused about how to eat pomegranates. Do I just eat them with skin and all? When I tried once, it was like a seed and I did not expect it. Is it like a flesh covered seed? Sigh..I am confused.. help me Roni, help help me Roni!
Here in Germany we have been using PointsPlus for over a year now (but the other WW programms before had the “free” food thing as well).
You do not count the free food. This salad is made of mostly 0 PP-food, so you only have to count the points for the walnuts. If you make a vegetable soup with “free” vegetables and just a tablespoon of oil, it’s just the oil.
It’s funny, I started WW January 2005 and I have dealt with “free” food ever since.
BigTickles – It is exactly l like a flesh covered seen. There is a thin skin, surrounding juice, surrounding a tiny seed. I guess it’s a bit of an acquired taste but the little guy and I love them! We pop them in our mouths my the handful!
This looks so good, I wish I had the ingredients to make this right this second!
I, too, have ran into the same issues!!! I’m wondering if the recipe builder needs to be tweeked? lol
Pomegranates are delicious in plain greek yogurt with flax seeds!!!
What I have read on the WW site is this……………..The recipe builder should be used to create recipes that have more than one serving, If you put a 1 serving recipe into the builder it automatically assumes that it is more than one serving. If your 1 serving item is filled with “free items” then they should be put into the tracker individually…..which to me still seems strange but that is what they say……………….so Roni from what I understand you are correct in assuming that this recipe should only be 3 WWPP!
Hope that helps!
Lump 3 oz of leftover wild red salmon on this puppy, and you have one hell of a meal to feel good about.
LOVE that addition!
I asked Weight Watchers guys.. here’s what they said… http://bit.ly/dS6tCz