A simple salad

The past week I had to travel out of town for a few days.  On the way home I grabbed a simple grilled chicken salad from the cooler at the airport.  The salad  was California Pizza Kitchen's BBQ Chicken Salad.  I thought I had chosen the best option available.  The salad was simple: grilled chicken with BBQ sauce, jimica, black beans, tomatoes, cheese and on the side, ranch, extra BBQ sauce and tortilla strips.  It was in a small container.  Below is a picture of my salad.  How many calories do you think were in this salad?

708 calories were in this salad!  I was shocked.  This is a great example of how restaurants sneak in extra calories.  To be safe, assume the calories in restaurant foods are at least TWICE (or more) the amount that would be in there if you would have cooked it yourself.  Also, most restaurant salads are over 1000 calories unless they are on a lower calorie menu.

To cut calories in this salad you can do the following:  ask for a salad without cheese, throw away the fried tortilla strips and use light/fat free salad dressing or only use the extra BBQ sauce and forget the dressing all together.  The moral of this story is to choose your salads and toppings carefully and never to assume something is low in calories.