Upping the health and nutrition of our diets is pretty easy. Go for whole wheat toast instead of a donut, choose water instead of soda pop, and order the turkey sandwich instead of the cheeseburger. But what about food and beverage choices that aren't so clear cut? Here are five foods to avoid and five you should stop avoiding.

5 to Forget

Fruit Drinks and Fruit Juice

Products labeled fruit drinks may have less than 1% actual fruit juice. The rest is water and sugar or other sweeteners, just like soda pop, although fruit drinks and cocktails are sometimes fortified with additional vitamins and minerals such as vitamin C or calcium.

"Fruit Juice", on the other hand, must be just that — 100% fruit juice, with no added sweeteners. Sounds better, but although a 6-8 ounce cup of fruit juice will satisfy one of the four servings of fruit recommended by the USDA, fruit juice contains a lot of sugar — fructose and sucrose — and little dietary fiber. The American Association of Pediatrics used to recommend fruit juices as a good source of vitamins, despite the sugar. Not anymore.

Granola/Snack Bars

Like fruit drinks and fruit juice, most snack bars have too much sugar for our own good. Most also come with saturated fat (the artery clogging kind) and plenty of calories. Think of these as tasty treats — Lite Candy Bars with half the calories in two-thirds the serving size — rather than healthy snacks and limit consumption accordingly.

Margarine

The American Heart Association still recommends margarine over regular butter. That's because margarine contains less saturated fat than butter does. Unfortunately, many margarine brands contain trans fats, those "partially hydrogenated oils" on their labels, which are worse for our arteries than saturated fats. What to do? Substitute olive, canola or safflower oils and look for trans fat free margarine.

The Morning Latte

An 8-ounce cup of black coffee has just two calories, no fat, no sugar, and may have several positive health effects. But start adding chocolate and whipping cream and steamed whole milk and pretty soon that two-calorie cup of joe has ballooned into a 400 calorie, 198 fat grammed belly buster. Drink it black or cut it with nonfat milk — or soy or almond milks — and go easy on the sugar.

Processed Foods

This isn't one thing to avoid, but a broad category covering everything from ketchup to frozen pizzas. Americans eat 31 percent more pre-packaged food than fresh (787 processed pounds per person per year versus 602 fresh pounds). What's the problem?

Processed foods contain higher amounts of sodium, fat, and sugar than their fresh counterparts, all of which contribute to higher rates of heart disease, obesity, and diabetes. For those concerned about shrinking their carbon footprints along with shrinking their waistlines, processed food requires more energy to produce and distribute than does fresh food. It's hard to beat the convenience of packaged foods. The Healthy Eating Pyramid might make it a little easier.

5 to Forage For

Broccoli

This cousin of cauliflower has been a favorite on Italian tables since the Roman Empire and a favorite of nutritionists for decades. It's filled with an alphabet of vitamins (A, B, C, E, K…) and a dump truck of minerals including calcium, magnesium, selenium, and phosphorus. Broccoli even offers a bit of protein. Medical researchers have known for years that broccoli helps the body resist several types of cancer; now they think they may know how.

Chocolate Milk

Opt for lowfat — or even better, nonfat — and the childhood favorite becomes a potent post-workout elixir. With or without the artery-clogging saturated fat, a glass of chocolate milk has a carbohydrate to protein ratio of about 4 to 1, which turns out to be just what a body needs to recover and reload. And as always, milk's still a good source of calcium, which is good for bones. What's new is that calcium has been shown to help with weight loss.

Oatmeal

As a whole grain, oatmeal offers a host of healthy boosts: dietary fiber, complex carbohydrates, protein. What it doesn't offer is a lot of fat. The combo of carbohydrate and protein makes it great for breakfast, and because oatmeal's complex carbs aren't easily broken down, glucose is released slowly into the bloodstream, leaving us feeling full longer. All that and a morning bowl of oats can help reduce the "bad" cholesterol and can reduce the risk of heart disease.

Walnuts

Or almonds or peanuts or cashews… most any nut could have made this list, since all are good sources of heart-helpful substances such as vitamin E, unsaturated fats, and plant sterols. But the walnut gets the nod here because it's the highest in Omega-3 fatty acids, the super fatty acid that can reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke and ease the symptoms of arthritis, hypertension, and even ADHD. Omega-3s are the reason we've always been told to eat more fish. Walnuts do have a considerable amount of fat, but most of it is the unsaturated "good" kind that can reduce the "bad" cholesterol.

Salmon

Here's another protein to substitute for red meat, and what a protein! Salmon is a good source of Omega-3 fatty acids (like walnuts, above), with the same positive effects: reduced risk of heart disease, stroke, easing of the symptoms of depression. As for protein, a 6-ounce porterhouse packs 38 grams, two-thirds the daily recommended requirement for a healthy male adult — and 44 grams of fat (16 saturated), also about two-thirds the daily limit.

Meanwhile, the same serving of salmon delivers 34 grams of protein, and just 18 grams of fat (4 saturated). If you're concerned about mercury and other toxins, most researchers agree that 12 ounces, or two servings per week, will provide all the benefits with little risk. Finally, while there is considerable disagreement about whether wild salmon are nutritionally superior to farmed salmon, wild salmon from well managed stocks remain the more environmentally sound choice.

This post was included in the Total Mind and Body Fitness Blog Carnival, #193.