Sugar Overload: 11 foods that pack in the sweet stuff [9-11]

9. Most sugar-packed Chinese meal

Manchu Wok Honey Garlic Chicken with Fried Rice

34 g sugars
840 calories
34 g fat (6 g saturated)
2,100 mg sodium
Sugar equivalent: 3 chocolate Eclairs

Why does this simple Chinese meal pack as much sugar as a pack of Skittles? Blame the Honey Garlic Sauce bathing the chicken. The Honey Garlic Chicken packs about twice the sugar as the Pineapple Chicken, so making that switch will automatically improve the dish. Do yourself one extra favor and switch to mixed vegetables instead of rice as a side. You'll earn flavor and nutrients while eliminating 280 calories.

Eat This Instead!

Pineapple Chicken with Mixed Vegetables
17 g sugars
300 calories

10. Most sugar-packed cereal

Quaker Natural Granola Oat & Honey & Raisins (1 cup)

30 g sugars
420 calories
12 g fat (7 g saturated)
6 g fiber
Sugar equivalent: 2 scoops of Edy’s Slow Churned Rich and Creamy Fudge Tracks Ice Cream

Like eating dessert for breakfast? Because that's basically what granola is. Sure, there's a splash of fiber, but it's completely diluted by a tidal wave of sugar. In fact, sugar accounts for more than a third of the calories in this bowl, and unfortunately, Quaker's is the rule, not the exception. The only acceptable use for granola is to crumble a small handful into plain yogurt. Save your bowls for a cereal more wholesome.

Eat This Instead!

Post Shredded Wheat (1 cup)
0 g sugars
170 calories
1 g fat (6 g fiber)

11. Most sugar-packed canned fruit

Del Monte Peach Chunks in Heavy Syrup

23 g sugars
100 calories
0 g fat
Sugar equivalent: 3 Rainbow Popsicles

Unlike most food on this list, these peaches aren't bona fide junk food; they are, after all, still fruit. But why manufacturers feel the need to can, package, and bottle nature's candy with excess sugar is a question that Eat This, Not That! will never stop asking. In this case, the viscous sugar solution clings to the fruit like syrup to a pancake, soaking every bite with utterly unnecessary calories. Looking for cheap sources of fruit to have on hand at any time? Opt for the frozen stuff—it's picked at the height of season and flash frozen on the spot, keeping costs low and nutrients high.

Eat This Instead!

Dole Frozen Sliced Peaches (1/4 cup)
3 g sugars
167 calories
0 g fat

Sugar Overload: 11 foods that pack in the sweet stuff [5-8]

5. Most sugar-packed soda

Sunkist (20-ounce bottle)

85 g sugars
325 calories
0 g fat
Sugar equivalent: 17 Chewy Chips Ahoy! Cookies

This one drink contains as much sugar as most people consume in a day—and that’s accounting for the fact that most people consume way too much of the sweet stuff. That’s because, just like the grape juice mentioned above, it’s made up mostly of water and high fructose corn syrup (only the water in this soda is carbonated). Diet Sunkist cuts out all real sugar, but you’re still better off skipping the soda altogether.

Drink This Instead!

Honest Ade Orange Mango (16.9-ounce bottle)
24 g sugars
100 calories

6. Most sugar-packed juice

Tropicana Grape Juice Beverage (15.2-ounce bottle)

72 g sugars
290 calories
0 g fat
Sugar equivalent: 4 Klondike Ice Cream Sandwiches

This beverage has more than 10 percent of your day’s calories and as much sugar as 7 glazed doughnuts. Want to know why? It’s made from just 30 percent juice (which is already naturally sweet)—but grape juice concentrate shows up third on the list of ingredients after filtered water and high fructose corn syrup. When drinking juice, opt for 100 percent, and keep portion sizes small.

Drink This Instead!

Minute Maid Mixed Berry 100% Juice (1 box, 6.75 fl oz)
23 g sugars
100 calories
0 g fat

7. Most sugar-packed kids' meal

Oscar Mayer Maxed Out Turkey & Cheddar Cracker Combo Lunchables

61 g sugars
680 calories
22 g fat (9 g saturated)
1,440 mg sodium
Sugar equivalent: 6 Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups

The Maxed Out line is the worst of the lackluster Lunchables, with a back label that reads like a chemistry textbook. By cramming dessert and a supersweet drink into the box, Oscar manages to saddle this already-troubled package with more added sugar than your child should take in all day.

Eat This Instead!

Oscar Mayer Cracker Stackers Lean Ham & Cheddar
6 g sugars
340 calories
19 g fat (9 g saturated)
1,110 mg sodium

8. Most sugar-packed mall snack

Auntie Anne's Cinnamon Sugar Pretzel with Sweet Dip

61 g sugars
600 calories
12 g fat (7 g saturated)
Sugar equivalent: 21 Starburst Fruit Chews

The combination of the sweetest pretzel with the sweetest dip (there are 32 grams of sugar in that little cup!) makes this the most nefarious option for your blood sugar and your choppers. Nothing trumps marinara in the battle for a better dip, but to complement the sweet flavor of a raisin pretzel, cream cheese is far safer than the other options. Cut an extra 30 calories by asking them to prepare your pretzel sans butter.

Bonus tip: See which fast-food joint made our list of the 20 Best Restaurant Meals 2009.

Eat This Instead!

Raisin Pretzel with Cream Cheese
16 grams sugars
440 calories
11 g fat (7.5 g saturated)

Sugar Overload: 11 foods that pack in the sweet stuff [1-4]

The 11 Most Sugar-Packed Foods in America, you’ll find products that you’d never think of as “sugar-filled.” That’s why five out of five dentists no-doubt agree: These eleven foods are bad for your teeth—and your health.

1. Most sugar-packed item in America

Smoothie King Grape Expectations II (40-oz)

250 g sugars
1096 calories
0 g fat
Sugar equivalent: 30 Chocolate Drizzle Rice Krispies Treats

There’s only one other item on the Smoothie King menu with as much sugar as this smoothie, and that’s a drink intended to help guys bulk up fast—so it’s overloaded. That’s still no excuse for packing 250 grams of sugar into one measly cup, but at least it’s flagrantly and openly excessive—unlike this grape drink, which is listed under the menu’s “Snack Right” section, if you can believe it.

Drink This Instead!

Low-Carb Strawberry (20-oz)
3 g sugars
268 calories
9 g fat (4 g saturated fat)

2. Most sugar-packed shake

Coldstone Creamery Very Vanilla Shake (Gotta Have It-size)

192 g sugars
1820 calories
85 g fat (59 g saturated, 2.5 g trans)
Sugar equivalent: 6 and a half Snickers bars

When lambasting Coldstone milkshakes, we normally focus all of our attention on the gluttonous PB&C monstrosity, which weighs in at over 2,000 calories. But the Very Very Vanilla bests the PB&C in sugar content by nearly four popsicles’ worth. Suck down this sinful diet destructor, and you’ll consume nearly a full day’s worth of calories, three days’ worth of saturated fat, your total daily allotment of artery-clogging trans fatty acids, and as much sugar as in more than six Snickers bars! The bad news is that even Coldstone’s Sinless Smoothie line contains an outrageous amount of sugar—we’ll have to recommend the Butter Pecan Ice Cream, once again. Or, better yet—just skip Coldstone altogether!

Eat This Instead!

Butter Pecan Ice Cream (Like It-size)
28 g sugars
320 calories
19 g fat (12 g saturated, 0.5 g trans)

3. Most sugar-packed ice cream

Coldstone Creamery JELL-O Butterscotch Pudding Ice Cream (Gotta Have It-size)

97 g sugars
830 calories
41 g fat (27 g saturated, 1 g trans)
Sugar equivalent: 5 scoops of Ben and Jerry’s Vanilla Ice Cream

Part of the problem here is that you’ve ordered Coldstone’s Gotta Have It size, which is the equivalent of ordering about three scoops of ice cream from another joint, like Ben and Jerry’s. The other problem is that this ice cream has been mixed with JELL-O Pudding flavor, which basically amounts to more sugar. Stick to the smalls, and choose the Butter Pecan instead to cut over two-thirds of the sugar content and more than half the calories.

Eat This Instead!

Butter Pecan Ice Cream (Like It-size)
28 g sugars
320 calories
19 g fat (12 g saturated, 0.5 g trans)

4. Most sugar-packed coffee drink

Starbucks Tazo Green Tea Frappuccino Blended Crème with Whipped Cream (20 ounces)

97 g sugars
650 calories
15 g fat (8 g saturated, 0 g trans)
Sugar equivalent: 11 York Dark Chocolate Covered Peppermint Patties

While green tea has myriad health benefits, presentation is key—and this green tea concoction has been so nutritionally sullied that any potential benefits are utterly lost. Not only does this one drink contain over a quarter of your day’s calories, it also packs nearly half a day’s worth of saturated fat—and, as we mention above, as much sugar as you’ll find in 11 Peppermint Patties. Your best bet when ordering at a coffee chain is to skip the fancy drinks altogether. Order a regular green tea, without all the trimmings.

Bonus tip: Avoid the hand-held dietary disasters on our list of the 30 Worst Sandwiches in America.

Drink This Instead!

Tazo Tea (Venti)
0 g sugars
0 calories
0 g fat

Mind reading moves closer to reality

Mind reading could be taken a step away from the field of science fiction, thanks to a new study, the researchers taught a computer to spot specific memories that a person was with them.

To be sure, science is a long way off from attachment to a device and people knowing their thoughts. But the study showed that past events leave only "memory traces" in a portion of the brain called the hippocampus, traces can be distinguished between them in brain scanning.

The study is the number of online March 11th Current Biology.

"We found that our memories are certainly represented in the hippocampus," senior study author Eleanor Maguire, a professor at the Wellcome Trust Center for neuroimaging at University College London, said in the statement. "Now that we've seen where they are, we have an opportunity to understand how memories are stored and how they may change over time."

In the experiment, researchers took 10 people to three short films several times and asked to memorize what they saw.

The seven films showed two different actresses shared relatively similar scenarios: In one, a woman looking through her purse to find an envelope and then dropped in a mailbox in another, a woman over a cup of coffee and dropped the Cup in a trash can.

This type of silence is considered an episodic memory, or memory of a collection of events, as opposed to a semantic memory, such as being able to recall a fact or an implicit memory, such as the possibility of tie your shoes, said Martin Monti, a neuroscientist at the Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge, England.

Afterwards, participants were asked to recall either a specific movie, or any one of the films, while their brains scanned using functional MRI. While the scan may not actually look at the firing of groups of neurons (called voxels), it does report changes in blood flow that signal activity in particular brain areas, Monti explained.

A computer algorithm then examined patterns generated when participants "remembered", and tried to identify the film was reminiscent of volunteers.

Computer could accurately predict an accuracy of about 45 percent of movie one person was thought during the scan. Since there were three films, would be offered the chance of about 33 percent accuracy.

"The algorithm was able to provide correctly which of the three films of volunteers was recalling significantly above what would be expected by chance, lead study author Martin Chadwick, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University College London, said in a statement. "This suggests that [the memories of people] are registered in a regular pattern."

Previous studies have shown the hippocampus, located deep within the brain's medial temporal lobe, is associated with the creation and strengthening memories. This is essentially the brain process of putting together sights, sounds and smells, can all be processed in different brain areas and bringing them together in memory, Monti said.

So one day scientists will be able to use brain scans to read your mind?

That's probably a long way off, because fMRIs are a technically advanced but still rather raw-viewing means neural activity. And though researchers were able to tell the difference between memories within the strict limits of the laboratory, which is a far cry from being able to "read", memories that make up the entire human experience, Monti said.

"Our instruments are not that fine grained. It's like trying to read a book when not know the language and your eyeglasses are crummy," he said.

One of the beauties of an experiment, however, is the possibility that a better understanding of the brain may open the door to new treatments for memory problems, said Paul Sanberg, a professor of Neurosurgery and director of the University of South Florida Center for Aging and Brain Repair.

"The study confirms these memories are found in the hippocampus," Sanberg said. "We understand more about memories and how they are formed and stored, we will come closer to understanding people have problems with memory or from injury, aging or degenerative diseases."

Gays, Lesbians Excluded From Some Medical Studies

"Our study indicates that it is more widespread than would have guessed." said Roland Dunbrack, Jr., co-author of the report, which appears in the March 18 issue of New England Journal of Medicine.

"It is an exclusion that in many cases can, in most cases, there needs to be used," said Dunbrack, an associate professor at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia.

Review boards that approve research, both local and federal, already keeps a close eye research, which exclude minority groups or for either gender, Dunbrack noted. He and his colleagues launched their research because they were curious about the limitations of study involving gays and lesbians.

"If you want to exclude a certain group, usually have a reason for it," he said, but there are no such restrictions on gays and lesbians.

Researchers have suspected that the issue of inclusion - and exclusion - of gays and lesbians do not come very much out of research into sexuality. And found that to be the case, at least for asthma research. For more than a thousand studies on asthma is that researchers, none had restrictions based on sexual orientation.

However, of 243 studies that included the words "young", "erectile dysfunction" or "hypoactive" (referring to low sex drive), 37 excluded non-heterosexuals in some way.

"Not that any study looked at should be rewritten," said Dunbrack, but there should be reasons given for exclusions, and 'do not know what the rational for these studies should be. "

Those most likely to collapse in the studies of same-sex relationships were sponsored by industry, multi-regional studies and phase 3 clinical trials (phase before drugs are usually submitted for FDA approval), the team was found.

James Beaudreau, education and policy director of the gay and lesbian Medical Association, said it was important to include lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons in medical research because some medical experience at different rates.

For example, studies suggest that lesbians may be more likely to develop breast cancer than other women. Also, he said, "the health effects of stress related to living with a stigmatized identity includes higher rates of depression, anxiety, suicide attempts, and substance abuse."

"Real danger is that gay and transgender people may respond differently to medical interventions, but we will never know if we do not collect information," said Beaudreau, whose organization represents medical professionals.

"We do not believe that is an unreasonable burden on researchers to ask questions about sexual orientation and gender identity," he said.

Will exercise slim my chubby cheeks?

Q: I recently had the weight and everything seemed to go to my face and torso. So now I have chubby cheeks, a double chin and a fat belly. I will lose it, but do not want to be too thin elsewhere. Is it true that the latter gained the weight is the first to be lost? What would be the best way to get rid of my cheeks, belly and double chin?

A: Different people get fat in different places, or fat depots in the body. People lose weight from different places, too. A 1997 review in the journal Human Reproduction says that where the body fat stored tend to be influenced by genes. The heritability, or part of a move that can be attributed to genes, have been estimated at up to 50 percent, depending on the fat depot.

How much and where fat is lost varies as much as how much and how it is achieved. Many studies have shown that no matter what method of weight loss, have a tendency to fat to be lost in the torso or stomach for most people, rather than, say, thighs or lower body. But the amount as a percentage of total fat loss you can lose in certain areas of the body is unclear. Studies of twins have shown that where fat tends to be lost is also very genetic.

Fat in the stomach seems to be won and lost quite easily. So it is probably safe to assume that if you exercise and diet, you will lose fat from your belly.

But it is unclear how the fat is away from other areas such as the face. Most weight-loss studies do not measure facial fat loss. One reason may be that there is no easy way to do it. Most body fat measures that look at specific fat depots using skin folds (where the subcutaneous fat on the back, waist and thighs are "squeeze" and measured) or tape measure (which can determine your waist, hip or thigh circumference, for example).

New technology may be better able to capture the fat around his cheeks and chin. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and CT (CT) scanner can capture the location and amounts of body fat, but these scans are expensive and it is not often used in weight-loss studies.

The specific sequence of when and where fat is lost is not easy to measure, since a study to determine this would be expensive. It will probably require MRIs taken every week or two for a large number of subjects who are dieting and / or training to measure the displacement of fat over a longer period. A quick Medline database search revealed no such studies.

Anecdotally, of course, you can hear that some lost weight in a certain pattern, such as in the upper body first and the last body, or from her cheeks before your stomach. But you can hear an opposite effect as well, since the pattern can all be dictated by an individual's genes.

Exploring the nuances of fat loss is a new area in obesity research. Several lectures in the 2009 annual meeting of The Obesity Society reported studies looking at the functions of different areas and types of fat in the body. But since this type of research is in its infancy, there may be a while before the practical information is known.

It is safe to say that you will lose weight from your entire body, including abs and face, if you eat sensibly and do the recommended amount of physical activity for weight control. The U.S. government's 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans and American College of Sports Medicine Position Stand on Appropriate Physical Activity Intervention Strategies for Weight Loss and Prevention of Weight Regain for Adults recommends a minimum of 150 to 250 minutes of moderate to heavy physical activity each week, walking, running, cycling or using a cardio machine. You should also make sure of one to three days of weight training on nonconsecutive days a week.

Necklace lines; strange plastic surgery procedure

Along with ropey hands and wrinkly earlobes, necklace lines -- those horizontal lines across your neck -- can be a telltale sign of aging. As a result, many women – and men – have them smoothed out with a few well-placed injections of Botox or Dysport. And well-placed is the operative term.


“It’s a very advanced technique, and should only be done by someone who’s very experienced,” says Dr. Hema Sundaram. “If the technique or the dosage is not done right, you can weaken the neck muscles or have dry mouth or difficulty swallowing.” When done correctly, however, the results can be “very nice.” Sundaram, who prefers Dysport over Botox for this procedure (“you can do fewer injections and you get a nice smooth look”), says she’ll often pair the treatment with a “Nefertiti lift,” a neck lift procedure named for the former queen of Egypt. “If you inject Dysport or Botox into the muscle around the jawline, you get this lovely lifting effect,” she says. “It’s nonsurgical but it makes your neck look long and graceful.”


Cost for a series of injections to take care of necklace lines can run between $300 and $700 and will last from three to five months.