Defend the Indefensible: iceberg lettuce

The best crunch is endive.

I have bad memories from a restaurant job where a box of iceberg came in with a dead rat inside.

Don, if you can be conned by a head of lettuce, how can we trust what you say on political threads anymore?!

Clearly, this would explain a lot of things.

-- Ned Raggett (ne...) (webmail), Yesterday 8:45 AM. (Ned) (later)

i agree with this. i hate the hold rocket has over the food networks.

its texture is what works for me. if im making a sandwich i need and even balance of wet and dry as such:

bread - dry
butter/marg - wet
lettuce - dry
beetroot - wet
cheese - dry
tomato - wet

right there is the perfect sandwich.

my family was never anti-dessert but its just something we never thought to eat after dinner. i was pretty shocked, when i started making friends of my own, that every other kid was eating ice cream with all kinds of syrup (remember 'ice magic'?) every night. All except one of my friends whose mother only let him eat lettuce sprinkled with sugar for dessert. years later, this is still a solid basis for ridicule in our relationship.

Also, my mom used to talk me into eating vegatables by saying 'but it doesnt taste of anything!' (iceberg lettuce being one of those), which may be the reason i like my food so bland, even pepper is a little too spicy for me.

it's all about the "little gem" for me.

tho recently I had a chunk of very pale crunchy iceberg in a thai salad kag, smothered in satay sauce, hardboiled egg, carrot, etc, the lettuce made the spice manageable.

I dont usually like it at all tho. Too bland. Cos has a good flavour and texture and holds together nicely in salad or on sammichez.

I don't think it's the best lettuce for salads, but it's okay when mixed with some other leafy greens - butter, romaine, what have you.

It's totally dud when people get all up in arms about iceberg lettuce though.

What I want to know is what does my beloved rocket lettuce look like when it' not in a bag? What flavour plant?

fuck salad

fuck sandwiches too

man, that article is really annoying and challopsy

because all salads are made with iceberg lettuce do u c

The nutritional composition of iceberg vs. almost any other lettuce is negligible. The waste in growing lettuce in a field (85% or higher of US lettuce is grown in Salinas, California) is astounding. Horrible agriculture.

6 gallons of water to grow a 5 oz of organic, ready to eat lettuce. And that's not counting the water used to wash it three times.

Where the fuck are people ordering all these salads that are just lettuce, cucumber and radishes?

Yeah what a strange article. Almost no salads Ive eaten have had iceberg lettuce, and even the ones mostly greens-based are heavy on the rocket and herbs and tomatoes and cheese (parm, feta).

Most "salads" I encounter are beets, chickpeas, nuts, cheeses, greens/herbs/wild leaves.

Yeah but the vast, vast majority of salads served use iceberg as the base (food service/restaurants). The most common ingredient in a salad other than iceberg lettuce is tomatoes.

The trend is galloping away from iceberg and towards ready to eat lettuces of arguably "more nutritious" varieties such as lollo/butter or other loose-leaf leafy greens. But the nutritional profile, particularly for the serving size. Several oz of any kind of lettuce has almost no nutritional value. Even a few ounces of spinach or collards or chard or kale or whatever has meager nutritional impact. People starve themselves by eating water or they use the lettuce as decoration and load up on other stuff.

I dunno, I like dark greens in a salad for their flavour (esp wild rocket). And bitter greens are sposed to be good for digestion, tho I suppose in the bowlful amounts of a salad who knows if it has much impact as you say.

I still like iceberg lettuce salads (blue cheese / walnuts / etc.) but I do not pretend that they're anything but an indulgence.

people should only eat foods with an optimal nutritional profile-to-serving size ratio