American Heart Association recommendation: Limit your intake of foods high in calories or low in nutrition, including foods like soft drinks and candy that have a lot of sugars.

Here’s Why:

Since there is such a focus on eating a low-fat diet, people often think that any food that is low in fat is inherently healthy. This is not the case. For example, soda and hard candy have no fat, but they also have no vitamins, minerals, fiber, or other health-promoting ingredients. What they do have is sugar, and lots of it. A lot of sugar can add up to a lot of calories.

Eating foods high in sugar and calories can lead to weight gain. Being overweight is one of the three major risk factors for heart attack.

In addition, sugary foods often take the place of healthier foods. For example, choosing a soda over a glass of skim milk, or snacking on gummi bears instead of an apple.

Here’s How:

Here are a few tips to help you minimize your intake of empty-calorie foods.

Don’t be fooled by low-fat sweets. Often, when food manufacturers remove fat from cookies, crackers, cakes, and other snack foods, they add sugar to make up for the flavor lost with the fat. The result is that many low-fat snacks provide the same amount of calories—or more—as the original product. So a low-fat banner on the package doesn’t give you free reign to eat the whole box. It’s still important to look at calories and limit snacks.

Find other ways to satisfy your sweet tooth. Sometimes a little bit of sugar goes a long way. Try some of these tactics:

* Instead of the sugary cereal you’ve been eating since you were a kid, make a bowl of oatmeal and top it with some brown sugar, honey, or maple syrup.

* Snack on a bowl of applesauce; if it’s not sweet enough add raisins or brown sugar.

* Fruits, both fresh and dried, are sweet and may offer you the sweet fix you’re looking for at 3:00 in the afternoon or after dinner. Try some fruit first, before heading for the candy, and see if that satisfies your sweet tooth.

Choose diet versions. If you just love the taste of soda and can’t imagine having popcorn or pizza with anything else, try a diet version. Or if it’s the bubbles you crave, have a glass of one of these zero calorie beverages:

* Seltzer water (some are flavored)
* Club soda (add a splash of fruit juice for flavor)
* Fresca

RESOURCES:

American Dietetic Association www.eatright.org