Have you spotted a colourful salad jar on your colleague’s desk yet?

If you follow city food bloggers on Instagram, then your feeds must be loaded with the images of rainbow-hued salad jars. The current ‘Al Desko’ lunch trend of the season is awash with jars loaded with an array of healthy ingredients like vegetables and legumes, leaves and fruits, and seeds and nuts.
Christopher Clark, author of Nutritional Grail, is rooting for jars. “Be careful while choosing the ingredients. Tender lettuce leaves, especially at the base of the jar, are likely to go soggy or wilt in a couple of hours. Add things that will hold up,” he advises.
His favourites include root vegetables like carrots and beets, chopped herbs, nuts, cooked rice or quinoa, and steak or other cooked meat. 
The trend can help you stay true to your resolve of eating healthy throughout the week; on the weekends, prepare five different jars and stock them up in the refrigerator. Whilst making a jar requires some planning, it is quite an easy task.
Start by filling it up with a dressing of your choice and follow up by adding layers. In the first one, add crispy ingredients like cucumbers, tomatoes, red peppers and avocados; in the second, go for rice, barley, quinoa, pasta, lentils, beans, etc (leftovers included); in the third, add meat or eggs. Top it up with herbs or salad leaves. Close the lid and your healthy takeaway lunch is ready.

As for calories, it will depend on the size of the jar and the ingredients (nuts, seeds, and meats are big contributors) and vary between 350 and 600 (an ideal calorie intake for a meal is 400). “Go in for veggies and you will be sorted. Also, you can easily double or reduce the calories, as you please,” adds Christopher.  
Is the trend here to stay? Well, jar or no jar, eating healthy salads in any form is here to stay.
- anita@khaleejtimes.com