14/03/2026
The ‘Simple Healthy Salad’
I often hear the phrase: 'Just make a simple healthy salad.' It’s also something I’ve likely said myself at different times in my life.
One thing I’ve learned is that this kind of thinking can be unhelpful at best and harmful at worst. When we know better, we can do better. I’m working on doing better, and I welcome you to join me.
Suggesting a salad is usually intended as practical, well-meaning advice. Yet it very much depends on who you are offering that advice to. 'Healthy eating' is a phrase used often, and many people believe it to be straightforward. A salad can indeed be a cheap and easy meal. But the idea that is true for all, and that people simply need to recognise this and make better choices, ignores a range of 'hidden ingredients' required to make that salad possible.
The long list of invisible ingredients sits alongside a checklist of capacity and is something we may have all, some or few of these at different times in our lives. We simply cannot always see or know someone else’s capacity.
Consider things like:
having enough income to buy food
time and capacity to shop and prepare meals
a kitchen, a fridge, electricity and clean water
a body able to shop, cook, chew and digest food
the mental space to plan and prepare meals
These are not universally available resources, skills or capabilities. Nor are they necessarily reliable for any of us throughout life.
For example: financial capacity is one factor increasingly affecting many people especially with the increasing cost of living, food is often sacrificed. I’ve experienced financial distress and poverty myself. And just the other day I had a fall and sprained my right wrist quite badly. I will recover, but right now I can’t even use a knife to cut butter.
If you’ve ever been poor, injured, exhausted or overwhelmed, you would remember at least one time in your life when you were simply too tired to think about preparing food. Even if all the ingredients were there, you just couldn’t force yourself make a thing.
Now imagine needing to push through multiple barriers just to make a 'simple salad'.
As a dietitian I see first-hand how these hidden ingredients shape what people are actually able to make and eat versus what they might want to make or eat. For some, the choice is not really theirs to make. Life has already made it for them. For others, insufficient income becomes the biggest barrier and if a significant one that over time compounds and reduces capacity in other ways.
The recipe I shared is my way of using satire to explore this idea. It looks like a familiar recipe format, but the ingredient list aims to expand awareness beyond nutrients and willpower. Capacity itself is a hidden ingredient in life, and especially when it comes to food access.
As a society we need to widen the lens. When we do, we begin to see that health is shaped by much more than what’s on the plate or written in a recipe and the way we help becomes more targeted and actually helpful.
Eating and especially eating well, depends on a great deal of capacity. Without that capacity, expectations around 'healthy eating' quickly become unrealistic and, quite literally, a privilege.
Perhaps instead of assuming simplicity around, we instead let go of judgements like that. When people say they can’t, we can then trust that they know their own circumstances best. And maybe then we will ask better questions such as:
What would be most helpful for you right now?
This is one of the ideas I explore in my talks and workshops. If this piece resonated with you, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Thank you for reading and supporting the work I share here.
— Kerry
CARE Nutrition & Counselling
Understanding the science of nutrition AND the realities people live with.
