5 Healthy Replacements For 5 Popular (But Unhealthy) American Grocery Store Purchases

Popular nutrition app ShopWell, available on iOS and Android devices, recently collected data from 1,000 shoppers in the US, analyzing over 100,000 grocery items purchased across 15,000 shopping trips. What they've found is that Americans are paying for incredibly high quantities of products with added sugars.

Highlights from the study include:

- 89 percent of American diets include excess sugar.
- American shoppers purchase foods with 95 percent more added sugar than recommended by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. (More details on updated American guidelines here.)
- On average, most added sugar comes from soda, energy drinks, candy, cookies, cold and hot cereals, and breads.

Here are some of the worst sugar offenders. Along with each, Lara Felton, RDN and head of nutrition at ShopWell, has provided a much less sugary, much healthier alternative.

Coca Cola
The ShopWell study lists a serving of Coke as having 9.25 teaspoons of sugar. Instead, Felton suggests a sparkling water, such as La Croix, that contains no sugar at all.

Crunch Nut Cereal
Kellogg's Crunchy Nut Cereal has five teaspoons of sugar per every 1.5 cups. If you need a little crunch in the morning, Felton suggests Quaker Puffed Rice cereal as a healthy, sugar-free breakfast cereal option.

Entemann's Dark Chocolate Cake
We know that you didn't think that Entemann's Dark Chocolate Cake was healthy. Surprisingly, a serving has less sugar than Coke — it contains seven teaspoons of sugar. A healthier alternative? Snacking on a bar of dark chocolate (the kind that's good for you).

Oreos
At 3.5 teaspoons of sugar per serving, regular old Oreos (as opposed to one of Oreo's ever-evolving, always-growing new flavors list) aren't the healthiest cookie on the block. Instead, Felton suggests Annie's Honey Bunny Grahams. These aren't sugar-free, but they come in lower than Oreos at 2.25 teaspoons per serving.

Red Bull
Need some energy? Instead of the 9.25 teaspoons of sugar associated with Red Bull, reach for a cup of black coffee. Coffee naturally has no sugar, but if it's too intense for you try one of our 26 Morning Pick-Me-Ups That Aren't Coffee.