Desperately craving less-healthy food? You can have your cake (ice cream, cookies) and eat it, too, provided you enjoy it in moderation and keep track of the fat and calorie cost. Overload on it, however, and you could wind up going off the fat-and-calorie deep end. Here's the skinny on the best (and worst) of the less-healthful foods in a few popular categories.
Candy bars
Best bet: 3 Musketeers
Worst bet: Snickers
Milky Way, 3 Musketeers and Snickers, oh my. The hands-down winner
for the chocolate-bar splurge is 3 Musketeers with a creamy 8 grams
of fat (4.5 saturated) and 260 calories compared to Milky Way's
10 fat grams (5 saturated) and 270 calories, and Snicker's 14
fat grams (5 saturated) and 280 calories. (True, the peanuts in
Snickers are healthy, but if it's nuts you crave, you're
better off eating a handful plain than trying to satisfy your nut
craving by eating a candy bar.)
Cookies (single-serving packages of comparable
weight)
Best bet: Mallomars
Worst bet: Oreos
There's no shame in putting your hand in the cookie jar for
these light and fluffy chocolate-marshmallow delights. One package
(two Mallomars) contains just 60 calories, 2.5 grams of fat and 17
milligrams of sodium. One package of Oreos (three cookies),
however, packs twice the calories (120), 7 grams of fat and an
astounding 150 milligrams of sodium. A single-serving package of
Chips Ahoy (three cookies), providing 160 calories, 8 grams of fat
and 105 milligrams of sodium, emerges as the real cookie
monster.
Ice cream
Best bet: Edy's (Dreyer's in the western United States)
Worst bet: Haagen Dazs Cookie Dough Chip
Edy's/Dreyer's Cookie Dough ice cream (180 calories per
1/2-cup serving) easily iced equal portions of Ben &
Jerry's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough (300 calories) and
Haagen-Dazs' Cookie Dough Chip (310 calories). Plus
Edy's/Dreyer's packs a mere 9 grams of fat compared to 16
grams for Ben & Jerry's and 20 grams for Haagen-Dazs.
Chips
Best bet: Doritos
Worst bet: Lay's Sour Cream & Onion Potato
Chips
Doritos 3D's crunched the competition: A 1-ounce serving (32
pieces) of these air-filled cheesy triangles contained just 130
calories and 5 grams of fat. Fritos Corn Chips pack 160 calories
and 10 grams of fat, and Lay's Sour Cream & Onion Potato
Chips top the list at 160 calories with 11 grams of fat.
Want to know the best in snack cakes, burgers, and pizza? Head over to Shape.com.
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