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It&#8217;s 3 o&#8217;clock on a Monday afternoon, and with the end of the work day in sight, you reach into your desk drawer for a bit of &#8220;brain food&#8221; to power through that last deadline.For some people, snacks are helpful for making it through the day. They help fight hunger, stress, tiredness and boredom at the office.While a healthy snack can give you a much-needed boost, an unhealthy snack could sabotage your otherwise healthy diet.Snack cabinets at the office tend to be filled with unhealthy or &#8216;faux healthy&#8217; foods &#8212; simply because these foods tend to stay fresh longer, require no preparation, and taste good. Unfortunately, these snacks can cause you to gain weight or become unhealthy if you eat too much.In most snacks, the main offender is sugar. The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends eating no more than 36 grams of added sugar per day for men and no more than 25 grams for women. What you may not realize is that a single snack can have more than an entire day&#8217;s worth of sugar. Salt is the other culprit, with some savory snacks providing way more of your daily target than you&#8217;d think.Here are five office snacks that may be undermining your diet &#8212; and some healthier alternatives you should reach for instead.Granola and protein barsGranola bars are a snack staple at work. They&#8217;re cheap, portable, tasty and very shelf-stable.Protein bars are also a popular choice for a late-day snack. Because of their names, people assume that protein bars are healthier than granola bars.Most protein bars are better for the gym than the office. They are designed to provide a lot of calories to be burned off during a workout. But that doesn&#8217;t make them a good office snack. A single bar can contain almost your entire day&#8217;s worth of sugar. In fact, one popular protein bar has 20 grams of sugar. If you&#8217;re not working out, this will be stored as fat.Try replacing that granola or protein bar with plain granola like muesli, or read the nutritional information label on your bar carefully To get more protein in your snack, try eating raw or lightly-salted nuts.Trail mixWhile you&#8217;re out hiking on the trail, you may be trekking over tough terrain, climbing hills and keeping your balance on rocks. All of these things take a good amount of energy &#8212; which is why trail mix is usually full of sugar and calories for quick energy.Be careful, some trail mixes are more like candy than performance food. They can have a lot of added sugar and salt. A single serving of a popular trail mix contains 11 grams of sugar and 55 milligrams of sodium. Plus, it&#8217;s not uncommon for people to eat more than one serving of trail mix in a sitting. Eating too much unhealthy trail mix without being active may cause you to gain weight.Instead of trail mix, try eating pumpkin, hemp, chia or sunflower seeds. If you&#8217;re craving something sweet, throw in some dried fruit. Be aware of how much dried fruit you eat, however, because it can be high in sugar too. Making your own trail mix, using carefully chosen ingredients, is a great option.PopcornWith all snack foods, it pays to read the label. This is especially true with popcorn.Plain, air-popped popcorn is a fairly healthy snack. But, when it&#8217;s coated in salt, sugar or butter, it becomes downright unhealthy. For example, movie-theater-style popcorn can contain over 60 grams of saturated fat&#8212; almost three times your daily recommended intake. Read the label on popcorns to see whether or not they are full of additives.Instead of buttered popcorn, choose unbuttered, plain popcorn. If you want to make it tastier, add some seasoning, but go easy on the salt.Oatmeal Generally speaking, oatmeal is good for you. Oats provide fiber, carbs, protein and antioxidants. However, the pre-packaged, single-serve bags tend to be very high in sugar.Oatmeal is a breakfast standby that also makes a great snack. It is filling, and oats are nutritious. However, pre-packaged and flavored oatmeal can suffer from the same problem as many snacks &#8212; too many additives and too much sugar.If you like oatmeal as a snack, choose plain, instant oats.Yogurt Yogurt is a very healthy food. It&#8217;s chock full of probiotics, calcium and protein. But inside many popular yogurts, there also tends to be a lot of added sugar.Be sure to read the label on your yogurt &#8212; some yogurts can contain an entire day&#8217;s worth of sugar. In fact, an average fruit-flavored yogurt has close to 32 grams of sugar per serving.When eating yogurt as a snack, try eating plain yogurt and adding fruit and honey yourself.Best of all, maybe bring some fruit in with you each day for that afternoon pick-me-up.<style>
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<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta>By Alfred CasaleTo Your Health</bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta>Dr. Alfred Casale, a cardiothoracic surgeon, is Associate Chief Medical Officer for Geisinger Health and Chair of the Geisinger Cardiac Institute. Readers may write to him via ae@www.timesleader.com.</shirttailMeta></div>

To Your Health: ‘Faux-healthy’ office snacks may be sabotaging your diet