The Truth About Common Nutrition Myths

Myth: A grilled-chicken sandwich beats a burger.

The real deal: This seemingly healthy favorite not only contains more calories -- roughly 350 versus 250 -- than a plain hamburger, but it can also be a sodium bomb. "Many restaurants use chicken that has been injected with a saltwater solution to keep it moist," says Stephen Sinatra, MD, a cardiologist in Saint Petersburg, Florida, and a coauthor of The Fast Food Diet. Even a no-frills chicken sandwich with just lettuce, tomato, and mayo can pack more than 1,300 milligrams of sodium. That's more than double the amount in a burger and more than half of your daily quota.

Worried about a burger's toll on your heart? Don't be. A recent study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that people who ate about five ounces of lean beef daily as part of a healthy diet lowered their cholesterol level by the same amount as those who ate less beef.