Worst Foods in America

Worst Salad in America 2009

On the Border Grande Taco Salad with Taco Beef and Chipotle Honey Mustard1,700 calories, 124 g fat (37.5 g saturated), 2,620 mg sodium

The dismal dawn of the 1,700-calorie salad is upon us. With as much saturated fat as 37 strips of bacon and more calories than 11 Taco Bell Fresco beef Tacos, this abdomen expander earns a well-deserved spot on our list of the Worst Foods in America.

Eat This Instead! House Salad with Fat-Free Mango Citrus Vinaigrette255 calories, 12 g fat (3.5 g saturated), 280 mg sodium

Worst Asian Salad

P.F. Chang's Chicken Chopped Salad with Ginger Dressing940 calories, 68 g fat (10 g saturated), 2,225 mg sodium

The ginger dressing gives this salad a tangy Asian-style kick; it also packs in a whole day's worth of sodium. Order this salad as a starter and you'll be consuming the caloric equivalent of 3 ½ Snickers bars before your main meal even hits the table.

Eat This Instead! Spinach Stir-Fried with Garlic (large)136 calories, 6 g fat (1 g saturated), 895 mg sodium

Worst Chicken Salad

T.G.I. Friday's Pecan Crusted Chicken Salad1,360 calories

Turns out Friday's monster salads aren't much better than their burgers. Six out of the 7 we analyzed topped out with more than 900 calories, which means that lunchtime can be the start of something big-namely, you belly.

Eat This Instead!Cobb Salad590 calories

Worst Fruit Smoothie

Dunkin' Donuts Tropical Fruit Smoothie540 calories, 4 g fat (2.5 saturated fat), 106 g sugars

"Real Fruit" doesn't necessarily mean it's healthy. Dunkin' Donuts fruit smoothies are made with fruit puree or fruit that is mixed with high-fructose corn syrup and sugar. Any medium (24 oz) fruit smoothie will pack at least 100 grams of sugar-more than six times the sugar in a Chocolate Frosted Cake Donut. Opt for flavored iced tea instead.

Eat This Instead! Raspberry Flavored Iced Tea10 calories, 0 g fat, 0 g sugar


Worst Protein Bar

PowerBar Energize Berry Blast Smoothie: 210 calories, 3.5 g fat (0.5 saturated fat), 6 g protein, 24 g sugars, <1>Worst Soup

Panera Broccoli Cheddar Soup (8 oz) in a sourdough soup bowl790 calories, 17.5 g fat (9 g saturated), 2,210 mg sodium

Order your soup with a sourdough roll instead of a gargantuan bread bowls-you'll cut 370 calories from your meal.

Eat This Instead! Low-Fat Vegetarian Garden Vegetable Soup (8 oz) with a whole grain loaf220 calories, 2.5 g fat (0 g saturated fat), 1,190 mg sodium

Worst Frozen Coffee Drink at Starbucks

Strawberries & Crème Frappuccino® Blended Crème – whip (grande)570 calories, 15 g fat (9 g saturated fat), 83 g sugars

This afternoon pick-me-up is a clandestine delivery system for 30 teaspoons of sugar. To top this sugar load, you would have to munch through three sticky orders of cotton candy.

Drink This Instead! Espresso Frappuccino® Light Blended Coffee110 calories, 0.5 g fat, 13 g sugars

The Worst Drink in America

Baskin-Robbins Large Heath Bar Shake
2,310 calories, 108 g fat (64 g saturated), 266g sugars

Let's look at America's Worst Drink in numbers- 73: The number of ingredients that go into this milkshake.66: The number of teaspoons of sugar this drink contains.11: The number of Heath Bars you would have to eat to equal the number of calories found in 1 Baskin Robbins Lg Heath Bar Shake.12: The average number of minutes it takes to consume this drink.240: The number of minutes you'd need to spend on a treadmill, running at a moderate pace, to burn it off.

Worst "Healthy" Drink

Glaceau VitaminWater (20 oz bottle) 130 calories, 33 g sugar

Vitamins and water might sound like the ultimate nutritional tag team, but what the label doesn't say is that a bottle of this stuff carries nearly as much sugar and calories as a can of Coke. Makes sense, though, since this so-called functional beverage is produced by our often-sugar-crazy friends at The Coca-Cola Company.



Worst "Healthy" Bread

Arnold Whole Grains Health Nut (2 slices, 86 g)240 calories, 4 g fat (0 g saturated), 4 g fiber

Don't fall for the label braggadocio. For as calorie dense as this bread is, there's just not enough fiber to justify it in your diet. Look for this unsuspecting potato bread, instead, which is one of the best loaves on the shelf. In addition to a boast-worthy fiber load that doubles that of Arnold Whole Grains Health Nut, it also packs an impressive 12 grams of protein.

Eat This Instead! Martin's 100% Whole Wheat Potato Bread (2 slices, 70 g)140 calories, 2 g fat (0 g saturated), 8 g fiber

Worst Butter Substitute

I Can't Believe It's Not Butter! Original (1 Tbsp, 14 g)90 calories, 10 g fat (2 g saturated, 2.5 g trans), 90 mg sodium

Stick margarine is the absolute worst. To make it solid, it has to be stabilized with partially hydrogenated oils, the source of trans fat. Instead, choose the lower-calorie Organic Valley Whipped Butter, which only has two ingredients: sweet cream and salt.

Eat This Instead! Organic Valley Whipped Butter (1 Tbsp)50 calories, 6 g fat (3.5 g saturated), 40 mg sodium

Worst Canned Fruit

Dole Tropical Mixed Fruit in Passion Fruit Nectar (1/2 cup, 122 g)90 calories, 0 g fat, 20 g sugars

This recipe is augmented with a gob of sugar, which adds unnecessary calories to the can. 100% juice is the best you can hope for-it means you eat only real fruit and their juices. After all, why pay full price for anything less than 100%?

Eat This Instead! Del Monte 100% Juice Tropical Fruit Salad (1/2 cup, 122 g)60 calories, 0 g fat, 14 g sugars

Worst Cereal

Quaker 100% Natural Granola, Oats, Honey & Raisins (1 cup)420 calories, 12 g fat (7 g saturated), 6 g fiber, 30 g sugarsGranola, for all its good reputation, is usually weighed down by a deluge of added sugars. It's the caloric equivalent of 8 chicken wings-and, for the same amount of sugar, you could have a bowl of Cocoa Pebbles more than twice the size. Even scarier, with the Cocoa Pebbles, you'd get more fiber and save about 60 calories in fat.

Eat This Instead! Kashi GOLEAN (1 cup)140 calories, 1 g fat (0 g saturated), 10 g fiber, 6 g sugars

Worst Frozen "Healthy" Entree

Healthy Choice Complete Selections Sweet & Sour Chicken (340 g)430 calories, 9 g fat (1 g saturated), 600 mg sodium, 29 g sugars

Why would fried chicken cloaked in sugar ever be considered the "healthy choice"?Sugar Equivalent: 2 scoops Breyers Reese's Peanut Butter cup ice cream. Eat

This Instead! Kashi Southwest Style Chicken240 calories, 5 g fat (0 g saturated), 680 mg sodium

Worst Juice

V8 Splash Mango Peach (8 fl oz)80 calories, 0 g fat, 18 g sugars

This juice is closer to Capri Sun punch than regular V8. The first two ingredients are water and high-fructose corn syrup, and it contains only 10% juice. Go for the less gimmicky version, instead.

Drink This Instead! V8 V-Fusion Light Peach Mango (8 fl oz)50 calories, 0 g fat, 10 g sugars

Worst Protein Drink

Naked Protein Zone Banana Chocolate (15.2-oz bottle)456 calories, 3 g fat (1 g saturated), 67 g sugars

This drink packs 30.5 grams of protein, but is that really worth the sugar and calories? It's the sugar equivalent of 5 Breyers Oreo Ice Cream Sandwiches, and you'd need to lift weights for 135 minutes-over two hours-to burn off those calories.

Drink This Instead! Bolthouse Farms Perfect Protein Vanilla Chai (16-oz bottle)320 calories, 42 g sugars

Worst Snack Bar

Kellogg's Nutri-Grain Raspberry Cereal Bar (1 bar, 37 g)140 calories, 3 g fat (0.5 g saturated), 13 g sugars, 2 g fiber

With refined flour on the outside and high-fructose corn syrup on the inside, these cereal bars are only healthy in theory. Not all Nutri-Grain products are equally unsavory, however. Choose the Nutri-Grain fruit and nut bars for more of the good stuff, and less of the bad.

Eat This Instead! Kellogg's Nutri-Grain Cranberry, Raisin & Peanut fruit and nut bar (1 bar, 32 g)120 calories, 3.5 g fat (1 g saturated), 11 g sugars, 3 g fiber

Worst Yogurt

Yoplait 99% Fat Free Cherry Orchard (1 container, 170 g)170 calories, 1.5 g fat (1 g saturated), 27 g sugars

Think those 27 grams of sugars come from the cherries? Think again: After milk, sugar's the first ingredient on this list. And there's as much of it in there as there is in a Kit Kat. Choose a Fage yogurt instead, which makes their flavored versions that much more tempting by blending in more fruit than sugar.

Eat This Instead! Fage 2% Strawberry140 calories, 2.5 g fat (1.5 g saturated), 17 g sugars

The Cereal Conundrum

Kellogg's Smart Start Cereal-The Claim: "Lightly sweetened".

The Truth: Unregulated by the USDA, the word "lightly" gets tossed around like a Frisbee in the food packaging world. Always take it with a grain of salt; in many instances, "light" is the first sign of trouble. With this healthy-sounding cereal, "lightly" means 14 grams of sugar from 5 different sources, all of which adds up to a cereal with more added sugars per serving than Froot Loops, Frosted Flakes, or Apple Jacks.

What You Really Want: A cereal with less than 10 grams of sugar per serving (and ideally less than 5), with at least 3 grams of fiber per serving. Look at cereal as a sugar-to-fiber ratio; you want a ratio no higher than two to one.