"Let's do lunch" is an invitation regularly extended in today's busy world. When people "do lunch" they often head for the salad bar, thinking it will provide them with a healthful alternative to other menu choices. But some items at the salad bar may not be as healthy as you think.

"Salad bars are bursting with good food choices, but they are also full of unhealthy ones," says Phyllis Stumbo, a registered dietitian at the University of Iowa College of Medicine Clinical Research Center.

You can often find more fat at the salad bar than you can at the fast food counter, Stumbo says. "Fortunately, salad bars have more pluses than minuses. You just need to know how to look for them," she adds. "Although salad bars include salads and dressings that are high in calories and fat, they also contain fruits and vegetables that are so low in both calories and fat that you can eat until you're full and not worry. These are the foods that make salad bars a healthful place to eat," Stumbo notes. These foods include lettuce, celery, carrots, green peppers, mushrooms, garbanzo beans, cauliflower, broccoli, zucchini, melon, tomatoes, kidney beans, fresh pineapple, and bean sprouts.

Another plus for the salad bar is that it contains many foods high in vitamin A, which is difficult to get in a meat and potatoes meal. Vitamin A is essential for human growth and vision in dim light. Foods rich in vitamin A include leafy greens such as spinach and broccoli, as well as carrots and peaches.

Stumbo says the salad bar is also a good place to get vitamin C. Leafy vegetables, tomatoes, and citrus fruits are high in this vitamin, which prevents scurvy, improves iron absorption, and promotes healthy gums and other tissues.

"Salad bars can also be high in fiber. When people think fiber, they think bran," she says. "This is because bran comes in a box and the label says it contains fiber. But vegetables, especially leafy, green vegetables, are also high in fiber.

"Most of the calories you consume when eating from a salad bar come from the dressing. For instance, in potato salad, it's the mayonnaise not the potato that has the calories," Stumbo says. She suggests you pass up salads mixed heavily with mayonnaise, oil, or creamy dressings and limit yourself to one tablespoon of dressing on your green salad. Also, limit the serving size or skip gelatin items made with cream cheese and whipped cream, which contain both saturated fat and cholesterol, she adds.

"Croutons look like little innocent pieces of toast, but they're not," she says. "Manufacturers usually drizzle them with butter so they'll stay crunchy, thus they may contain lots of saturated fat." She suggests you skip salad toppings such as croutons, bacon bits, and sunflower seeds. Stumbo points out, however, that nuts and seeds are high in polyunsaturated fats, which are desirable because they have a cholesterol-lowering effect on the body.