My father usually says that the only salad greens he likes are iceberg and romaine, but he'll eat arugula if it's served to him, so that he can honestly call himself an arugula-eating liberal elitist. (My family is weird about political foods. My sister started eating broccoli when Bush said that he'd always hated it and, now that he was president, he wasn't going to eat it anymore. I gave it another try then, but still couldn't stand it.)

iceberg gets a bad rap because normally people eat about 20 calories worth with 150 empty calories in the form of dressing. Iceberg actually has a pretty good fiber to calorie ratio. For that matter about 40% of the calories in iceberg is protein. And it has a decent vitamin A to calorie ratio as well.

If you want iceberg as part of a healthy meal, increase the quantity of iceberg, and make the "dressing" something healthy (not neccesarily low calorie, just non-empty calories). For example 8 oz of iceberg is not at all a bad basis for a taco salad, depending on other ingredients. But if it would be a healthy meal without the lettuce, it will be even healthier with 8 oz of shredded iceberg.

That's interesting...I didn't know.(And sometimes people serve it with one leaf in the grave, too.)

8 oz is a lot of iceberg. But I've always liked it, because it's so cold and refreshing and crunchy. It gets a bad rap.

Nothing is like the texture of iceberg. It's wonderful.

When I was a kid I thought I didn't like salad. It wasn't until I tried some mesclun that I discovered that actually, I just didn't like iceberg. I'll eat if if it's on a taco or burger or something like that, but in a salad, I like other greens (except arugula) much better.

For me it depends on what it is combined with. Maybe because we used a lot of different lettuces as a kid I never hated iceberg. For tostada or taco salad I like either shredded green cabbage or shredded iceberg - ideally with nopales.

Hil is me wrt iceberg, except I cannot even stand it on tacos etc.

Arugula pesto is good, but I agree that it's too bitter for me raw.

More food in this thread? I'm...a salad philestine. Dressing is such the fat and calorie trap I gave it up long ago. I have twothree salads: 1. the Caesar, with dressing on the side so I can halve it with water and apply myself, and grilled chicken breast strips. 2. The dinner, with a base of dark greens and purple cabbage, chopped chicken and/or ham (depending whether or not I can smell the nitrites), shredded cheddar, shredded mozzie, chickpeas, shredded carrot, chopped egg, mushrooms, coarse black pepper, and a drift of balsamic vinegar--raspberry if they have it, no more than a single tablespoon or less of any ingredient except the greens. 3. Iceberg? I don't waste time and effort shredding and chopping and putting it on a plate and eating it with a fork. I take a wedge or just five or six whole leaves and eat them plain, out of hand.