Since Romaine and leaf varieties of lettuce have become so widely available, our treasured iceberg lettuce, with its leaves perfect for hamburgers and sandwiches, and its crisp texture and taste that doesn’t bully a salad, has been much maligned. It’s tasteless, mostly water; it’s a nutritional pauper, they say. Well, I beg to differ. The iceberg is bad crowd seems to sustain this smear campaign simply because they think it makes them look more cultured. Iceberg has lots of things going for it, and one of those is its lack of strong flavor! Sometimes, what you want is texture and not taste.
For some reason, people also like to say the iceberg lacks texture, but this is just silly. It has a delicate, crisp texture. This is what makes it so perfect for a hamburger.
As well, the crisp texture, kept in wedges, can be just the thing when the right dressing is used. The wedge salad with blue cheese dressing and bacon is a standby in steak houses (a “BLT Wedge Salad) and before you scoff, consider that when you add flavors to other lettuces, they compete, but when you add flavors to iceberg, the iceberg acts simply as a crispy carrier. And you can even cook with iceberg! Try out this recipe from Katie’s Cucina for BLT Wedge Salad with Creamy Pepper Dressing.
Iceberg Lettuce Nutrition
And nutrition? Well, I don’t usually do nutrition in this blog, but in the interest of defending iceberg, I’ll compare iceberg to Romaine, per 100 grams, by weight. Keep in mind that the outer leaves of Romaine are more nutritious than the inner leaves, and this analysis assumes an average composition.
| Nutrient | Unit | Romaine, 100g | Iceberg, 100g |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calcium | mg | 33 | 18 |
| Iron | mg | 0.97 | 0.41 |
| Magnesium | mg | 14 | 7 |
| Phosphorus | mg | 30 | 20 |
| Potassium | mg | 247 | 141 |
| Sodium | mg | 8 | 10 |
| Zinc | mg | 0.23 | 0.15 |
| Vitamin C | mg | 4 | 2.8 |
| Thiamin | mg | 0.072 | 0.041 |
| Riboflavin | mg | 0.067 | 0.025 |
| Vitamin B-6 | mg | 0.074 | 0.042 |
| Folate | µg | 136 | 29 |
| Vitamin B-12 | µg | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Vitamin A | µg | 436 | 25 |
| Vitamin E | mg | 0.13 | 0.18 |
| Vitamin K | µg | 102.5 | 24.1 |
Romaine is some great stuff. The two nutrients that leafy green vegetables are held in such regard for, calcium and Vitamin A, it has in abundance. Iceberg can’t compete. And it lags behind in other micronutrients.
But is it “almost completely devoid of nutrients,” as is so often reported? Clearly not. To put this in perspective, bring Romain down a notch by considering the RDI (Reference Daily Intake) of calcium, of 1000 mg.
You’d have to eat over 3000 grams of Romaine to get that, over 6.5 lbs. Sure, that’s a lot better than 12 lbs of iceberg lettuce, but either way, you are going to be in some GI trouble.
Romaine is better than Iceberg, but it’s not a miracle. This can be a good approach, by the way, to help you cut through some of the overwrought claims about the superior nutritional nature of one vegetable over another.
Consider its percent of contribution of key nutrients to a “daily allowance” rather than just comparing one raw number to another. By those standards, no lettuce can make or break your nutritional balance.
Looking at the actual values, above, it seems that the nutrition books frequently get it wrong, by saying that Romaine has up to six times as much vitamin C when it doesn’t even contain twice as much. And neither lettuce contains a lot. It’s with beta carotene that Romaine really shines, though, and absolutely squashes iceberg.
So, iceberg is not as nutritious as Romaine. In fact, it has the lowest nutritional value of all the lettuces.
But it does have some nutritional value, and that nutrition comes with low energy density. Also, it has uses that it is quite suited for. If you don’t believe me, try an Asian lettuce wrap made with Romaine and see if you don’t want to get with some iceberg again.
How Did Iceberg Lettuce Get Its Name, Anyway?
As above, iceberg owes its popularity to economics. This firm head lettuce was easier to ship and got to the store less damaged. We (used to) love iceberg because we grew up eating it, being that it was pretty much the only lettuce many of us ever saw, as children.
Iceberg was introduced by W. Altee Burpee Company in 1894. In the 1920s, the company shipped by train covered with crushed ice. People saw the boxes coming with all their heaps of crushed ice and they said “The icebergs are coming.” Or so the story goes. The lettuce came to be called iceberg lettuce because of this but before, it was called Crisphead lettuce.
