You’re not making that salad with Iceberg are you? Why that’s a lame lettuce...

Iceberg lettuce is by far the most popular lettuce in the United States...

That’s a shame, because it's lame. In the lettuce department, Iceberg is a nutritional dud. It’s high in sugar and low in vitamin and mineral content. So which lettuce is best? You’ve got some good options:

• Romaine has less sugar and more fiber. It's an excellent source of vitamin C and a good source of folate and vitamin A. It also provides 10 times more beta carotene than iceberg lettuce and almost as much as spinach. All of this combines to make romaine one of the healthiest of all the lettuces.

• Green-leaf lettuce is a good choice too. It's low in fat and sugar and high in protein with healthy amounts of calcium, potassium, vitamins C, A and K.

• Red-leaf and butterhead have the highest amount of iron of all lettuces.

The bottom line is the dark green, leafy lettuces are generally the best. Toss those up with some more exotic leaves of arugula, curly endive, escarole and radicchio – and you’ve got some supreme salad on your plate.