Low-carb Smoked Salmon Salad With Pita Chips

Simple and delicious salmon salad with toasted low-carb pita chips

Earlier this month, I introduced you to a man named Chef Nicky--aka "The Racing Chef"--and the fabulous work he does keeping the race car drivers and their crew well-fed while competing. Chef Nicky is a real wizard in the kitchen as he proved with this Brussels sprouts recipe with lemons and walnuts that is low-carbilicious!

The response to that recipe was such that Chef Nicky wanted to share yet another one of his fabulous low-carb recipes with you again today. Although he calls for using pitas in this recipe, I took the liberty to find a low-carb version of pita bread from our friends at LO-CARB U which you can toast just the same as Chef Nicky calls for in his recipe. Or you can get pre-toasted pita chips and save the hassle of cooking them yourself. That's your choice!

THANK YOU Chef Nicky for yet another AWESOME low-carb recipe! I personally LOVE LOVE LOVE salmon because it is LOADED with healthy omega-3 fatty acids that your body absolutely needs. Throw in the greens and you've got a dish worth the wait. ENJOY!

LOW-CARB SMOKED SALMON SALAD WITH PITA CHIPS

For the Pita:
1 piece low-carb pita bread
1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
Salt (to taste)
Fresh ground black pepper (to taste)

Rub the top side of the pita with the oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake pita in a pre-heated 450 degree oven until a little crunchy. Cut into 8 even pie shaped pieces.

For the Salmon Salad:
4 ounces of smoked salmon (sliced)
2 cups mixed baby greens
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons lemon juice (fresh squeezed)
2 tablespoons sunflower seeds (toasted)
Salt (to taste)
Fresh ground black pepper (to taste)
1/2 fresh tomato (sliced thin)

Divide the salmon into 2 portions. Lay the salmon slices end to end overlapping about an inch. Toss the remaining ingredients together except for the tomatoes. This can be done in a resealable plastic bag. Arrange the tossed greens at one end of the salmon and roll the salmon around the greens creating a pinwheel effect. Sprinkle the tomato with salt. Arrange the salad, pita, and tomatoes on plate. Enjoy!

Serves 2. Get more recipes from Chef Nicky (not all of them are low-carb) anytime by clicking here. And we'll have more recipes to share with you in the future, so keep reading! :)

Would You Take Diet Tips From Your Dentist?

Why is it that everybody and their momma thinks they are some sort of "expert" when it comes to diet and health? I’ve seen it from my veterinarian and now it’s coming from my dentist, too! Jeepers creepers!

I’m not kidding.

In the mail this week I received the monthly newsletter from Rocky Creek Dental in Greenville, South Carolina and my dentist Dr. John R. Piccione. I usually enjoy reading this update on taking care of your teeth health, but the April 2007 issue included some rather suspicious diet advice as well. What does a dentist know about nutrition and bodily health aside from the ones in the viscinity of the pearly whites?

On the back side of this newsletter, Dr. Piccione included two recipes for his patients to eat and enjoy as part of their healthy lifestyle. Now, you would think a dentist would discourage people from eating sugar to protect their teeth from decay—nevermind the fact that it’s unhealthy for your body, too.

But, believe it or not, that’s exactly what he did with the following recipe that sounded like something that would be good for you. But this could be very deceiving until you look at the ingredients list:

SPINACH SALAD
1 bag spinach
1/3 cup SUGAR (ARGH!)
2 cups strawberries, sliced
Purple onion (med. Chopped)
1 Cucumber, chopped

Why would you want to ruin such an awesome meal like this by adding SUGAR to it? This would be an excellent recipe if you simply substituted Splenda or some other substitute sweetener in lieu of the sugar. Can you believe a dentist, considered an expert about health-related issues, is allowing this in a recommended recipe for his patients? UGH!

To make matters worse, check out the additional dietary advice he provided in the instructions for making this recipe:

“Combine above and serve with BREADSTICKS, and you have a great meal!”

YIKES! Unfortunately, that doesn’t sound like a great meal to me, Dr. Piccione. Adding insult to injury, you then promote the consumption of high-carb breadsticks to further worsen the problem with this meal. What horrible dietary advice!

I guess our culture has become so accustomed to serving bread or crackers with a salad that people don’t even give a second thought to skipping it altogether. Now there's a thought! And we’d all be a lot better off if we did this one simple step.

How about we make a deal with me, Dr. Piccione? I promise not to talk about how to take care of tooth health if you agree to skip giving out any more advice on a healthy diet? Your patients will be much better off in the end.

You can e-mail Dr. Piccione to let him know what you think about his ridiculous diet tips for his patients at rockycreekdental@yahoo.com.

4-16-07 UPDATE: The good dentist Dr. John Piccione found my blog post today about his newsletter. Needless to say, he wasn't very pleased with what I had written in this post.

Here's what he wrote in an e-mail to me:

Jimmy,

WHOA--I thought I could sneak that recipe in as a way to promote tooth decay. I applaud you for uncovering my evil intentions--the world is a better place because of your discovery and comments.

No sense in calling me first to inform me of this faux pas--it's more fun to have fun with it on the Internet. But I did have a good laugh when I read your posting.

For those who have more of a sense of fairness, you used a little artistic imagination calling this a diet tip in your blog. We do not have a section called diet tips in our newsletter. We have a section where our staff shares recipes with our patients.

I never personally tried the recipe, but I like to give my staff a chance to participate in the newsletter. The contributor of the recipe was probably more interested in sharing her "love of cooking" than worrying about its dietary impact.

Most of my patients are fair minded people with common sense. Certainly they can use a little artistic liberty to substitute the sugar for something more healthful, rather than using the mistake as tool to put someone else down to build themselves up.

I will however be more cautious in the future.

John Piccione

Here was my response to Dr. Piccione:

Hey Dr. Piccione,

I appreciate your note, but this kind of faux pas happens far too often for me to ignore it and let it slide. I apologize if you feel I was demeaning to you or your staff with the comments I wrote, but that was not at all my intention (nor was it to "build" myself up through it).

While it might have been an innocent oversight, the fact is people rely on the information they get from their doctors and dentists to be reliable and safe for them and their health. Unfortunately, the introduction of sugar into a recommended recipe (whether you explicitly provide it as a "diet tip" or not) is neither healthy for your teeth nor your body.

THANKS for your e-mail and I appreciate the opportunity to engage in the debate of ideas about healthy living. Take care and THANKS for helping to educate the public about their health!

Comments anyone?