It’s In the Bag: Packaged Salad Kits
With more desire to eat healthy and seemingly less and less time to do so, a new trend has emerged: the healthy prepackaged meal. These range from delivery services that provide you fresh ingredients and a recipe on a weekly basis to prepared kits you can get at your local grocery store. In this case we’re going to be talking about salad kits.
Salad kits are for anyone who wants to take the advantage of a fresh meal that’s also good for them, but doesn’t always have time to make something. Salad kits are simple but useful. They’re essentially a salad in a bag. The typical kit includes a bag of greens, a package of salad dressing, plus toppings such as additional veggies or croutons and even sometimes a protein like chicken. All you have to do is combine the ingredients in a bowl and mix together for a delicious meal.
There are a couple of prime advantages to the convenience of packaged salads.
First, it doesn’t take a lot of time to make. Packaged salads take only seconds to mix and serve. This benefits Americans who, according to a study by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, are steadily cooking less than they have in the past.
Second, it encourages people to eat more vegetables. The National Fruit and Vegetable Alliance reports that only four percent of Americans consume their daily required serving of 2-3 cups of vegetables.
While a simple bag of salad may not seem like it can create a huge impact when it comes to these two statistics, it most certainly can. NPR reports that while sales of fresh lettuce have fallen over the past 25 years, bagged lettuce sales have been climbing for the past five years. It is projected that salad kit sales will become more than a $7 billion industry this year, and with more than 70 percent of U.S. households consuming bagged/packaged salads, you can see why.
So the next time you’re running low on time or need an easy way to get some more veggies in, give a salad in a bag a chance.
