The Worst 'Healthy' Foods
Posted Mon, Oct 06, 2008, 12:55 pm PDT
If you want to lose weight, it may seem like a good idea to trade candy bars for granola bars or to swap bacon and eggs at breakfast for the classic bagel (it’s shaped like a zero; how bad could it be?).
Sadly, it’s
just not that simple. Customers’
nutrition knowledge is rising, so food
marketers are desperate to attract the
right kind of attention from the eating
public. So they’re twisting nutritional
buzzwords to
trick us into eating the kinds of foods
that can actually help make us fat.
We need to be more careful than ever to
make sure we’re feeding ourselves and our
families
the very best real health foods —
not sugar-infused calorie bombs disguised
as weight-loss foods.
Read up for our latest batch of dietary
phonies. They may look good on the front
label, but they’ll get you in the end if
you're not careful.
Granola Bar
200 calories
15 g sugars
Eat this instead!
1 oz cheddar cheese with Triscuits
150 calories
5 g sugars
Ever wonder what keeps a granola bar
together? The answer: high-fructose corn
syrup, which quickly raises blood sugar
and cancels out most of the potential
benefits the granola almonds and oats
might give you. Switch over to good
old-fashioned cheese and crackers, and
you trade sugar and calories for protein
and
fiber.
It's a big deal that will make you
smaller, as will steering clear of the
sugar bombs. By the way, these
are the most sugar-packed foods in
America.
Yogurt with Fruit on the Bottom
190 calories
30 g sugars
Eat this instead!
Plain yogurt with fresh fruit mixed in
110 calories
15 g sugars
Pass on these over-sweetened yogurt cups;
they contain as much sugar as a soft
drink. Almost all of that comes directly
from the “fruit,” which is swimming in
high-fructose corn syrup. Yogurt and
fruit can be a great way to start your
day, but do it yourself by mixing a cup
of nonfat plain yogurt with a half cup of
mixed berries.
Bagel
with Cream Cheese
700 calories
40 g fat
13 g saturated
Eat this instead!
Cheese omelet
425 calories
18 g
6 g saturated
Bagels are bogus. The bread is bad
enough, containing 300 calories and 60
grams of carbohydrates, but tack on the
liberal cream cheese schmear (by our
survey of popular breakfast chains, up to
4 ounces for a single bagel!) and your
"harmless" breakfast sandwich weighs in
as worse than a Whopper. The omelet swap
will save you nearly 300 calories, plus
provide a surge of metabolism-boosting
protein. And a recent study from the
University of Connecticut found that
eating eggs can help raise
HDL (good)
cholesterol.
And while you're being vigilant, watch
out for the 20
Unhealthiest Drinks in America!
Dried
Fruit
175 calories
45 g sugars
Eat this instead!
Fresh fruit, like an apple or a peach
70 calories
15 g sugars
OK, so dried fruit won’t totally derail a
day of good eating (unless you down the
whole bag of banana chips), but it’s far
from being a harmless snack. First,
because the dehydrating process sucks
most of the volume from the fruit, you
can eat cups of the stuff, and 600
calories later, still not feel any
fuller. More troubling, though, is the
fact that Sun-Maid and Ocean Spray add
sugar to the fruit, making Craisins
closer to candy than Mother Nature’s
original intention. The choice is clear:
Stick to the original, straight from the
tree.
Fish Sandwich
600 calories
30 g fat
11 g saturated
Eat this instead!
Grilled chicken sandwich
300 calories
13 g fat
4 g saturated
Fish is good for you, except when it’s
battered, fried, robed in cheese, and
bathed in tartar sauce. The lesson? Even
the biggest star can be sabotaged by the
supporting cast. To this end, avoid any
menu item with the word "crispy," the
restaurant industry’s favorite euphemism
for “fried.” Make sure your next fish or
chicken sandwich is grilled, dressed with
fresh produce, and topped with a low-cal
barbecue sauce, or even ketchup and
mustard. And watch the salt;
these 20 foods are the saltiest in
America!
Stick
margarine (1 Tbsp)
100 calories
11 g fat
2.5 g saturated
2.5 g trans fat
Eat this instead!
Whipped butter (1 Tbsp)
50 calories
6 g fat
1.5 g saturated
In their haste to remove saturated fat
from butter, margarine makers created the
margarine monster — a dangerous lipid
called trans fat, with more dangerous
links to heart disease than saturated
fat. Pick up whipped butter instead; by
whipping air into the spread,
manufacturers decrease the caloric
density of a tablespoon of butter, and
they make it easier to top your toast. If
you buy margarine, make sure it’s the
type found in the tub, hopefully with an
added bonus like omega-3s folded into the
mix.
When eating out, make these 15 top restaurant swaps to avoid caloric disasters. And check out our definitive restaurant report card to identify the best places for healthy eating at fast food and chain restaurants throughout America.
Eat better at home, too. Shop for the 125 healthiest supermarket foods in America.
Keep your
kids happy and healthy with twists on
these 10 favorites.
Look here for
17 foods that women should be eating
to stay fit.
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