The Skinny on 6 Snack Picks

Fruit Cups

Read carefully, and you'll find that your fruit is often packed in ‘light syrup' (which is essentially the same stuff they pour into the ‘juice cocktails' that you already know to avoid). It's nothing more than sugar—or worse—high-fructose corn syrup. One cup of mandarin oranges contains 103 bright, useful calories. One cup of orange sections in light syrup contains 154 calories, 51 of which are completely useless and possibly damaging. Instead, buy, peel and eat fresh fruit or at least be sure that any fruit is packed in real fruit juice, which is marginally more nutrient dense for its added caloric heft.