Here’s why I’ve eaten a salad every day since August and what I’ve learned

But I’ve got a suggestion as it relates to your diet, with the caveat that I am no dietitian but I know what works for me: Consider falling in love with salads. And by that, I mean stop treating salads like side pieces and start treating them like your main thing because the more you love salads, the more they love you back.

Take it from me, a guy who’s had at least three salads a week since 2022 and who decided last summer to start eating a salad every single day.

Many of them I’ve eaten in restaurants around Atlanta, such as Sammy’s, Madeira Park and Tipsy Thaiger, whose seasonally changing salad — in my opinion — is one of metro Atlanta’s best, hands down.

But I make the majority of the salads myself in my home kitchen, based on whatever produce I’ve seen at my local grocery store, including Buford Highway and DeKalb farmers markets when I’m feeling especially creative.

For example, while creating my 234th daily salad, I used a combination of spinach, red leaf lettuce and arugula, and added carrot strips, grapefruit, yellow tomatoes, fried chicken sliced longways and fried shallots, tossed in a turmeric–ginger dressing. I called it “Golden Lady” and paired it with one of my favorite Stevie Wonder songs of the same name.

A couple days later, I made a spring mix salad with prosciutto, pomegranate arils, yellow and Campari tomatoes, sliced apples, Kalamata olives and a mix of toasted and spiced seeds, with French vinaigrette. Super-savory and seasonal, it made winter taste a little bit warmer, despite its chilled temperature.

I named it “Bait” and had that popular “Go Girl” song from Summer Walker, Doja Cat and Latto playing in the background on the Instagram Stories post. If you know, you know.

My relationship with salads is kind of my culinary origin story. My mother, a city planner and longtime professor at Alabama A&M University, loved to cook and feed people her whole life. I always marveled at Mom’s ability to turn whatever was already in the fridge or on sale that week at Winn-Dixie into a masterful meal. Even though I am an only child, we always had friends, students and family members around at dinnertime because Mom was going to cook like she was catering a reunion every evening.

I’ve always loved salads, partially because, aside from collards, cabbage and other things that are kinda meant to be stewed, I’m not a fan of mushy vegetables, which my Alabamian and Tennessean kin eat religiously. I like things snappy, crunchy, fresh and raw.

Watching her cook made me want to cook, or at least help. I also knew that until I was good or old enough to help, I’d be in the way.

But you’ve gotta start somewhere, and I got her blessing one year when I was 10, just before Thanksgiving.

I come from a big, loving, Southern family. We’re always going to eat, and eat good (not “well” — good), whenever we’re together. Like my mother, my aunties are sorceresses at whipping the sauce, baking the cakes, frying any and everything. I was ready to show them I could hang with them and contribute something to the spread. I begged Mom to let me make something, and she suggested I make a family-sized salad.

I went to work. I grabbed iceberg lettuce, carrots, cucumbers and tomatoes and began carefully arranging raw veggies in a large bowl. I remember noticing that if you put things together in certain ways, the colors would start to combine and create culinary art and would help the salad draw attention.

When I finished, I remember it being vividly colorful and me being very proud. I was even prouder when the salad disappeared quickly from the Thanksgiving table, and my aunties all complimented me on how good it was. I fell in love with salads right then.

After that, Mom started letting me work with her more often in the kitchen. I’d devein shrimp, flip pancakes, stir stuff in hot pots and pans, and use bigger and sharper knives.

In 2022, Mom was diagnosed with a rare cancer. She moved in with me from her home in Huntsville to receive care from Emory doctors. I began making salads more often, especially on days I spent with her at the Midtown hospital, hoping our special culinary connection would motivate her to find an appetite on days she didn’t feel like eating. But her cancer’s appetite was stronger than her own. After being visited by many of those same friends, students and family members she spent her life feeding, she died on the first of October.

Part of my commitment to salads is in tribute to her. Part of it is based on what I learned, starting with three salads per week in 2022.

Just that initial base commitment — 1/3 of my weekly food consumption — made a noticeable difference in my energy, mood, weight and even mental clarity. And I, as her only child, needed to stay as healthy as possible to be the best caretaker I could be for her while she was here and then to take care of myself now that she’s gone.

So I kept the salads going. Then I started taking photos of my salads because I, too, noticed how beautiful they are, with all their greens, reds, purples, whites, oranges, browns and beyond, depending on your personal level of veggie pickiness. Being so photogenic makes salads highly Instagrammable, so they also gave me something to post on social media to keep an active account.

As of Dec. 31, the number of uncooked veggie medleys I’ve captured on camera and consumed was 227. I credit those salads, along with regular 2-mile treadmill runs and occasional cycling, for helping me lose weight I’ve long struggled to drop — around 25 pounds since last summer.

I figure if I can eat hella salads so unabashedly, maybe someone else might be motivated to do the same. People send me DMs all the time telling me they love #TheDailySalad and asking for recipes.

I’ve even inspired a few folks to start eating and posting their own daily salads, including Mia Orino, chef and owner of Kamayan ATL, who was just announced as a 2026 Best Chef Southeast semifinalist for the upcoming James Beard Awards. Orino snapped a photo of the lotus salad at Buford Highway Vietnamese restaurant Nam Phuong and tagged both me and the restaurant in an Instagram story posted on Jan. 7.

Credit: Courtesy of Mia Orino

Credit: Courtesy of Mia Orino

In an era where Atlanta dining enthusiasts may be brunching ourselves to bad future health outcomes, throwing a few salads in the mix just makes sense.

And I can testify that if you eat more salads, you can get away with a lot more dietary shenanigans. Put it this way: I’m neither doing “dry” or even “damp” January. Instead, I’ve declared it “Juicy January,” and good wine has been and will continue to be flowing until further notice.

I will at least commit to asking my server for pairing recommendations on what goes best with their featured salads and have a bottle of sparkling water for hydration’s sake.

I’ve learned a lot so far on this salad-y journey. One revelation is that Atlanta’s restaurants have amazing salads that a lot of folks are missing out on. Ordering the salad when you’re dining out can tell you a lot about a restaurant’s philosophy, such as the freshness of their produce, if they support local farms (and why), how creative and inspired the chefs are and whether or not they think you care.

I’ve also learned that as much as I love supporting Atlanta’s dining scene, I also love saving money and learning that you can easily make the same quality salad at home for far less money than your favorite trendy fast-casual salad chain charges.

In my estimation, I spend between $3 and $5 on every salad I make at home, depending on the ingredients. Those same salads would likely be closer to $20 in some of my favorite Atlanta restaurants.

Here’s the big thing I believe is keeping everybody from going saladarian: It doesn’t feel sexy. Eating a salad might sound boring to someone who could instead have roasted Brussels sprouts with bacon. I get it; a vegetable is a vegetable.

But roughage is what our systems naturally crave. They clean us out, and because we haven’t cooked the nutrients out of most salad ingredients, we don’t lose the benefits of vitamins and minerals being absorbed and digested naturally. Trust me; there’s a difference between eating healthy food and swallowing this year’s hot new supplements.

So I propose you take a good look at how sexy salads really are. Think about how much sexier you’ll feel after committing to something that already wants to love you inside-out. Consider whether or not the food you’re currently spending all your time and money eating is actually taking care of you or actually keeping you from leveling up.

I know from experience that if you’re looking for reciprocity, you can hardly do better than recommitting to raw, leafy greens. And ooh baby, I like it raw — at least my body does.

It’s easy to be temporarily passionate about positive things in January. It’s another thing to be committed to the right thing. And it’s even more to not doing it begrudgingly but because you’re actually loving something that loves you back — word to Teddy Pendergrass.

So even if you don’t join #TheDailySalad movement (which I’d love to see happen and feel free to use the hashtag), I’m just saying … Try looking at salads like you have a new set of eyes and realize that they’re not just healthy; they’re gorgeous.

I don’t know if your doctor even wants you eating salads, but I know from experience they’re good for me, so maybe they’ll be good to you. And if you know like I know, maybe you’ll start treating salads less like a side dish and more like your main course, now and forever.