Many  students have walked into the cafeteria and, hoping to be healthy, taken one of the large chicken salads and practically drowned it in dressing, all the while thinking that they were picking the best choice for their health.

There are tons of foods that seem beneficial, but are actually detrimental.  Some of these include diet soda, skim milk, smoothies, and even salads.

Diet soda may seem to be a better option than its regular counterpart, but it isn’t. According to a study published in “Diabetes Care” in 2009, drinking one diet soda per day may result in a 36 percent greater chance of having a large waist measurement and high blood glucose levels and a 67 percent higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to livestrong.com.

People also believe skim milk is a healthier alternative for whole milk. Although it does provide the body with many vitamins, most of the vitamins are fortified.  This means manufacturers add the vitamins to the skim milk because they aren’t there to begin with, which is not as healthy as vitamins that are naturally in whole milk. Skim milk and whole milk have their different drawbacks, their fat content and fake vitamins, and depending on why you drink milk, both types are not really any better or worse for you.

Smoothies are yet another place people meet trouble. Depending on what people use to make a smoothie, it can get very high in sugar and be up to 1,000 calories. Using just low-fat yogurt, fresh fruit, ice, and milk is a good recipe for a smoothie. I used to include truvia, a natural sweetener, in my smoothies, but now I don’t use any sweeteners at all because the yogurt and fruit are sweet enough.

Salads are the go-to food for pretty much anyone on a diet, but people should take heed. Filling up a salad with croutons, dressing, cheese, eggs, and other toppings makes the calories and pounds add up as well. Having salad with a small dose of light dressing is a good way to make sure the healthy meal isn’t being invaded by extraneous calories.

While these foods can become unhealthy, there are other foods that are normally frowned upon in today’s culture that aren’t as bad as they seem. Peanut butter, potatoes, coffee, and even chocolate can have positive effects on your body.

Though peanut butter can get a bad reputation due to its high amounts of fat and calories, it has some important benefits too. Most of the fat in peanut butter is the “good” kind of fat, or monounsaturated fat, according to prevention.com. It is also very nutritious, boasting several vitamins and minerals, and it even assists in losing weight.

Baked potatoes aren’t actually as bad as they seem either. Potatoes have tons of vitamins and minerals and a large potato only has about 220 calories, according to livestrong.com. The issue comes in with the sour cream, cheese, and butter, among other ingredients, that oftentimes get piled on. Using fewer condiments on the potato will make it much healthier.

Coffee is a drink most dieters try to avoid, but, like potatoes and peanut butter, it’s not as bad as it seems. According to webmd.com, research shows that coffee drinkers are less likely to have type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, and dementia. This is in part due to the antioxidants in coffee.

Although chocolate isn’t the healthiest food to snack on, dark chocolate has a lot of known benefits. According to fitdaily.com, dark chocolate is not only good for your heart and brain, but is also packed with antioxidants. By eating a small amount of dark chocolate two or three times a week, blood flow to the brain and heart can be improved and blood pressure can be lower.  It also reduces the risk of stroke.

People have been fooled to believe that high sugar and fat always mean unhealthy and low calorie and low fat are automatically the better option.  It’s nice to know we can deviate from that thought process every once in a while.

Ashley Beyer is a Lifestyles Editor for The Patriot and jcpatriot.com.