6 Foods that Aren't

Healthy food may be making you fat.

Hold on: I'm not talking about broccoli and bell peppers here. I'm talking about a lot of the foods that are sold to us as "low-fat," "low-carb," or otherwise "healthy" fare. The food industry invests $30 billion a year in advertising, and much of that is used to dupe consumers into believing bogus bites are somehow good for us.

The truth is, behind every low-fat label and celebrated salad is a list of ingredients that would give even the most relentless glutton reason to reconsider.

In researching the best-selling book "Eat This, Not That!," the title for this new blog with my co-author Matt Goulding, we were shocked to find that the foods so many health-conscious eaters in this country consider to be smart choices are actually the most responsible for our ever-expanding waistlines.

Many of the "low-fat" or otherwise "healthy" options we examined packed several hundred extra calories in them! Translation: Get duped into eating one pseudo-healthy food a day, and you'll have an extra 30 pounds (or more) to work off by the end of the year.

We've identified six of the most misunderstood foods in America, so that next time you think you're doing your body a favor, you actually will be - by looking for something else that actually is healthy.

1. Bran Muffin
440 calories
23 grams of fat
35 g sugars

Made primarily with sugar, refined flour and hydrogenated oil, it's like starting your day with a candy bar. Actually, it's like starting your day with two candy bars, since this misunderstood muffin has more fat and calories than two Kit Kat bars.

2. Chicken Caesar Salad
900 calories
60 grams of fat

Caesar salads suffer the consequences of two natural disasters: a flood of fatty dressing and a blizzard of Parmesan cheese and croutons. All told, it's a caloric catastrophe - equal to scarfing down 20 Chicken McNuggets!


3. Tuna Melt
950 calories
55 grams of fat

Plain tuna out of the can is healthy; tuna drenched in mayo, shrouded in melted cheese, and slicked with another layer of dressing is not. You'd be better off eating three six-inch roast beef sandwiches from Subway!

4. Chicken Wrap
700 calories
35 grams of fat

How wraps got such a good rap is beyond us, since they're really just oversized tortillas, packing up to 400 calories on their own - that is, before the onslaught of cheese, meat, and dressing it houses! You'd get the same number of calories from 20 strips of bacon.

5. Turkey Burger
850 calories
50 grams of fat

At home a turkey burger might be a decent choice, but in the restaurant world it means high-fat ground turkey, heavy mayo, melted cheese, and a big, pillowy bun. It's the equivalent of three 8-oz sirloin steaks.

6. Fruit Smoothies
600 calories
120 grams of sugar

Unless it says 100 percent fruit, your "fruit" smoothie is likely made with ice cream, sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and a few token chunks of banana. All told, this popular afternoon snack has as much sugar as six Haagen Dazs Vanilla and Almond ice cream bars. Ouch.