The Six Worst Foods You Can Eat

Half of the food sold at grocery stores is bad for you, but "Reader's Digest" boiled it down to a list of the absolute worst foods you can eat. Here are the top six foods you should avoid.

#1.) Processed Meat. It's usually high in salt, fat, and cholesterol. And according to the American Institute for Cancer Research, meat that's smoked, cured, preserved in salt, or preserved with chemicals increases your risk for colon cancer.

#2.) Frozen Dinners. The portions might be small, but they're loaded with calories. And even though the diet versions are low-fat, they're heavily processed and usually high in salt.

#3.) Doughnuts. They're basically just refined flour and sugar. And one doughnut can have 300 empty calories and 20 grams of fat, including trans fat.

#4.) Potato Chips. Obviously, you'll gain weight if you eat too many. But they also contain the same carcinogen that's found in French fries called acrylamide (--pronounced ah-KRILL-uh-mide). So in other words, potato chips can make you fat AND give you cancer.

#5.) Foods Labeled "Low-Fat" and "Fat Free". There's a low-fat version of almost everything now. But when you get rid of the fat, you lose a lot of the flavor. So to compensate, food companies add more sugar and salt, and the end product is usually just as bad for you as the normal version.

#6.) Soda. It's not really a "food", but it's so bad for you it deserves a spot on the list. According to a recent study, drinking as few as two sugary soft drinks per week doubles your risk of developing pancreatic cancer. And a separate study showed that drinking DIET soda increases your risk of suffering a heart attack or a stroke by as much as 61%.

(Reader's Digest)