Yes they are. Where it becomes un-paleo is when you eat only salad, then you're in vegetarian land.

I never eat sprouts like alfalfa sprouts though and they tend to be higher in lectins and phytates because they just came out of their legume state.

Salads, especially the nutritionally dense and anti-oxidant rich varieties are the spawn of Satan and have been a bane to the human species for countless millennium. You would be well advised to avoid these demonic plants at all costs.

While your typical sprouts would not be paleo or primal there are a whole lot of appropriate foods you can sprout if you like them on your salad. Broccoli, cabbage, radish and kale all produce very tasty sprouts.

The day I have to stop eating salad because it's not paleo/primal is the day I become something else.

Optimal foraging theory would say no to the greens but yes to carrots and beets and possibly tomatoes. Nightshade haters would say no to tomatoes.

Sprouts are usually sprouted beans or grains, and are neither paleo nor primal. They might be a part of an ancestral diet, though.

So.. YMMV

salad: yes. sprouts:no....

Salads are best eaten with meat sauce as dressing.

Did you kill a deer so you could use its sweet, sweet eye juices as dressing?

If not...then, no.

"Salad" - A huge range of dishes, from a little salad with your meal at a restaurant up to macho taco salads - refried beans, mystery meat, pseudo sour cream, American cheese product, "guacamole" with a tiny bit of avocado in it, etc. Oh, and some iceberg lettuce. So you can't really make blanket statements about "salads."

Our paleolithic ancestors probably didn't eat anything we would call a salad. But I, at least, get hungry for salad in the spring and summer. In the fall and winter, I hunger for roasted vegetables and soups.

Even in the middle ages, people ate salads, especially in the spring. With oil and vinegar. Most people get hungry for salads. Some don't. OK. Different strokes.