What Treat is the Worst for Your Heart?

If you're family is anything like mine then you probably open your fridge to a huge supply of junk food.   Cookies,  pudding, tastykakes, and pretty much any other type of sugary treat you could possibly imagine. While browsing through my fridge for a snack (and, honestly a topic) I realized that I had several products from the company "Little Debbie", A.K.A. one of the number one makers of junk food.  It was then I got my inspiration.  While looking at the food label I found that there were differences in the key elements of each.  Though all are far from being considered “healthy” they do have varying amounts of key elements such as saturated fats and cholesterol as well as sodium and calories which could easily lead to heart problems.

The products I identified were Little Debbie’s “Swiss Rolls”, “Zebra Cakes”, and “Cosmic Brownies” (serving sizes, 2 cakes for “Swiss Rolls” and “Zebra Cakes and 1 brownie for “Cosmic Brownies”, which are appropriate serving sizes since that is how many there are in an individual package.).  I quickly hypothesized that the “Cosmic Brownies” would be the most “unhealthy”, chock full of saturated fat (which can lead to clogging your arteries) as well as calories, though it wouldn’t be much because of the similar ingredients used.  In other words, I predicted that they would be the least healthy for a person’s heart. They all had Sugar, corn syrup, water, enriched bleached flour, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil, and dextrose in their main ingredients.  Yet, as I observed I found it wasn’t necessarily the case.

First off, the calories,  In our body we have an amount of calories that we should each every day (usually around 2,000, though it depends on gender, activity levels, age, etc.).  I found that “Swiss Rolls” came in the lowest with 270 calories with “Cosmic Brownies” following ten calories more at 280.  But it was our “Zebra Cakes” that, well, took the cake with 320 calories!  That’s 50 calories more than “Cosmic Brownies” and 60 more than “Swiss Rolls”.  Too much and your heart could be hurting.

Secondly, the amount of saturated fat.  In this observation, “Zebra Cakes” once again came out on top with 14 grams, compared to “Swiss Roll” and “Cosmic Brownies” at 12 grams and 11 grams respectively.  As previously stated, saturated fat can cause buildup in arteries.  This can cause health issues, especially when concerning the heart.  With the clogging of arteries comes the increased chance of heart attacks.

But when we add all of those facts together we are also faced with the fact of the amount that is in each serving size.  Though all are the same amount one would eat at one time, the “Zebra Cakes” to the eye are larger than the “Cosmic Brownie” and “Swiss Rolls” in each serving.  This helps to show why the “Zebra Cakes” might be higher in certain areas than the other two sweets.  For example, it may raise not only how much fat but the nutritional value concerning fat because it is a larger portion, so more must go in.

At the end of the day, however, the “Zebra Cakes” seem to be the most unhealthy, at least when concerning vital parts of what increases weight gain and medical issues such as too much saturated fat.  This showed that my hypothesis was false and that the “Cosmic Brownies” were not the most unhealthy choice for your heart and that "Zebra Cakes" instead took the title.