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 croûtons. All told, it’s a caloric catastrophe – equal to scarfing down 20 Chicken McNuggets!

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.