Best Of The Worst

by Elizabeth M. Ward, M.S., R.D.

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It’s hard to be perfect.

No matter how good you try to be, there are times when every guy turns to the dark side: calling back the girl you know is wrong for you, just because you know she’s so much fun in the sack. Hitting the Best Buy electronics department, even though you know your rent check is a week late. Or even piling your plate with junk food when you know you should be reaching for a more responsible (and boring) piece of fruit.

Sound familiar? Well, the good news is we’ve found a way to eliminate some of that guilt. Twenty ways, in fact. Twenty foods you may have considered junk that are actually OK to eat. We’re not talking fat-free, sugar-free cookies here, or baked Styrofoam-like potato chips. No, these are classic “junk” foods. They’re processed. They’re a bit higher in calories and fat than we might prefer. And they certainly shouldn’t be staples of your diet. But they do have some redeeming qualities. And if you’ve got a craving and you plan to indulge, you’d be hard-pressed to Þnd a better option.

What you’re craving: ice cream
What to buy: Breyer’s Natural Vanilla
Sure, it’s made with sugar, but at least this ice cream takes the minimalist approach. With only six ingredients, it’s about as wholesome and natural as a processed food gets.

What you’re craving: sausage
What to buy: Armour Brown ’N Serve Lite Original
File this under It Could Be Worse. (We are talking about sausage, after all.) But at least with Armour Lite, you’re only getting 8 grams of fat for a serving of three links, compared with 19 grams in a full-fat option.

What you’re craving: fries
What to buy: Cascadian Farms Wedge Cut Oven Fries
Junk foods are notoriously low in potassium, a mineral your body needs for normal muscle function, heartbeat, and ¦uid balance. One serving of these potato wedges, however, supplies more potassium than a banana, and almost no sodium-a rarity for most potato products.

What you’re craving: bacon
What to buy: Butterball Turkey Bacon
While Butterball Turkey Bacon is no nutritional gift, it is signiÞcantly better than the porker variety. Three strips serves up about 100 calories and nearly 8 fat grams. Not so bad, considering that you know you’re gonna want to be swinelike and eat the entire package.

What you’re craving: candy
What to buy: hard peppermint candies
Besides being individually wrapped-creating an instant, unavoidable form of portion control-these red-and-white disks are überpotent, helping satisfy your taste buds quickly (and helping you eat less in the end).

What you’re craving: white bread
What to buy: Sara Lee Soft & Smooth
You’ve tried, but you can’t resist white bread, no matter how many times you’re told to eat more whole grains. This bread is a good compromise. It’s a blend of enriched white and whole-wheat flour, but by the taste, you’d never know it.

What you’re craving: pizza
What to buy: Amy’s Spinach Pizza
Even if you eat the whole pie, you’re taking in only 930 calories and 36 grams of fat (24 of them being the heart-healthy kind). Still feeling guilty? Think of the 36 grams of muscle-building protein and 6 grams of Þber you get in the process, as well as about 20% of your daily calcium quota.

What you’re craving: cake or a doughnut
What to buy: Twinkies
They’ve got enough preservatives to last decades, but who the hell cares? At 300 calories and 10 grams of fat for two cream-Þlled delights, Twinkies trump almost all other ready-to-eat cakes. Just one thing: no deep-fried Twinkies, OK?