Welcome to Goblin Mode Gastronomy, a series in which I navigate two opposing forces: healthy eating (to placate my autoimmune disorders) and executive dysfunction.

Prep/Cook Time: 2 minutes
Effort Level: 🥄(1/5 spoons)*

This might seem ridiculous for an adult to say, but I’m abysmal at feeding myself. If you’re even a tiny bit neurodivergent, you might relate. If not, congratulations! This post probably isn’t for you. (Unless you have a particular passion for bagged salads, I suppose.)

Assembling a healthy meal – sometimes any meal – is one of my main areas of executive dysfunction. The fact that cooking is often a multi-step process is usually my stumbling block. There’s shopping for ingredients, remembering to use them before they go bad, figuring out what you can make with whatever hasn’t become a science experiment, prepping, cooking everything long enough (but not too long!), and timing dishes to be ready at the same time. Each of these is likely to prove difficult for someone with ADHD.

I’m fortunate that my husband likes to cook, so I don’t usually have to fend for myself when it comes to dinner. But for at-home lunches and times when he’s out of town? I guess it’s a whole box of Cheez-Its, a packet of ramen, or an overpriced DoorDash order. While these might be enjoyable, they’re a ticket down the road of inflammation, something my Hashimoto’s doesn’t take kindly to. So, despite how challenging it is for me, I have a pretty solid impetus to figure out how to eat a balanced diet.

Enter the bagged salad kit. Ok, it might not be earth-shattering for anyone else, but it’s my holy grail of fast, decently healthy meals. But wait; before you rush out to the grocery store, there are some criteria to make sure this strategy doesn’t turn into a flop.

It’s Gotta Be Chopped

Everyone hates a bagged salad that’s gotten, well, slimy. And isn’t it astonishing how fast that happens? In theory, then, salad in a bag would be a terrible idea for someone like me, who regularly forgets what is in the fridge and has a batting average of 9 rotten vegetables to every 1 used. The secret? It has to be a chopped salad.

Composed of hardy ingredients like kale, cabbage, broccoli, and carrots (sometimes with limited amounts of romaine), chopped salads last much better in the fridge, even if I forget them for a week. This increased shelf life helps cut out that horrible slug of shame that comes with throwing out what had previously been a perfectly good salad. Bye, guilt!

The Trick is the Kit

If your executive dysfunction is anything like mine, don’t just get the salad base. Get the whole kit: veggies, toppings, and dressing.

Yes, I acknowledge that ready-made food comes at a premium. In fact, the reason why the bagged salad is such a revelation for me is because I couldn’t ever bring myself to fork over the extra dollars before. Growing up, I was pretty poor, and my family was pretty judgmental of things we considered “stupid luxury.” I remember when pre-washed, individually shrink wrapped potatoes made their grocery store debut. What a waste! Ok, I still wouldn’t buy one of those, but who am I to condemn something that might help someone get over their baked potato-related block?

Yes, it would be more economical to just buy the ingredients and make a salad myself. I’ve done it before. It’s not rocket science. But sometimes – actually, a lot of the time – the Task Mountain of buying, prepping, and then assembling a full salad’s worth just too high for me to climb. I need an out, and the salad kit is the path of least resistance.

Feeling Fancy? Jazz It Up With Protein

If you’ve got enough energy to do slightly more than dump three to four packets into a bowl, you still have the option to get fancy. A can of tuna or chicken — perhaps seasoned with lemon pepper or some other-ready made combo — can take your salad kit from serviceable to snazzy. If you have even more energy, a frying pan and a little oil (ok, and salt and pepper at least) are all you need to cook up some fish, shrimp, steak, tofu, or plant-based protein to give your salad an extra kick. (I particularly like using individually-wrapped, frozen tilapia or salmon filets. They thaw quickly in a measuring cup filled with hot tap water, and they don’t take long to cook, about four minutes or less per side.)

I Won’t Lie, There Are Downsides

• It’s more expensive. A quick glance at my grocery store’s website puts one bag (which I will eat in one sitting) at about $4. About the same amount of a kit that includes protein would run closer to $7. I’m awful at math, but I imagine this comes out to a couple dollars more per meal than buying the ingredients separately.
• It can get boring. If you’re relying on the salad kit for a high percentage of your meals, you’re going to have to get creative or face boredom. In theory my store stocks 20 “flavors” of chopped salad kit, but in practice that probably boils down to several southwestern/street taco flavors, caesar, ranch (sometimes with bacon), barbecue, “Asian,” and green goddess. A decent selection, but sometimes I’ll still stand in the produce aisle and stare at the options for a while before deciding I don’t want any of them.
• It could be healthier. Healthier than salad, you say? Well, yes. A lot of kits are fairly high in sodium and added sugar, neither of which are great for our health. The dressing would account for most of these, though, so if salt and sugar are a concern, you could swap out the kit dressing with some olive oil and balsamic vinegar, or a lighter bottled dressing.
• It’s a sustainability fail. We’re seeing the effects of single-use plastics in our oceans and waterways, and there’s no denying that increasing our use of local, organically-grown produce would benefit the environment in a number of ways. Salad kits come in a plastic bag with even more plastic bags inside that. To a certain extent, I’ve replaced the guilt of throwing away rotten produce with the guilt of throwing away a plastic bag, but at least this way my body gets some greens.
  A drowning person can’t save anyone else. Being an undiagnosed, untreated neurodivergent under late stage capitalism is a type of emotional drowning for me. So, while I try to make an effort to be more sustainable when I can, I also have to be realistic. Those who have the energy to save the world are admirable, but I can only do so much right now. 

Happy Crunching!

To conclude, none of this may be groundbreaking. Yes, it’s just a bag of salad, and yes, I’m definitely not the first person to come up with this idea. However, for years, it truly didn’t occur to me that this was a solution to my frustrations. I was just continuing to throw out gross, slimy produce, berating myself for forgetting, annoyed that I couldn’t muster the willpower to just feed myself.

It’s okay to make your life a little easier. Go ahead and get a salad kit if you want, and happy crunching.

Got a go-to meal for low executive function? Tell me about it in the comments–I’d love to hear your meal hacks!

*In the spirit of neurodivergence, I’m rating “recipe” effort using something called the spoon theory, which you can read about here.