Is your diet healthier than you think?

Get ready to be pleasantly surprised. Experts say a lot of what you believe about basic foods like coffee, beef and potatoes, is just pain wrong.

As you order your morning cappuccino, you hesitate for just a second, wondering if you should be drinking green tea instead to get real health benefits. Later at the salad bar, you bypass the broccoli toppers in favour of mushrooms and feel a little guilty about not making the most vitamin rich choice. At dinner, you know that chicken would be the lower-fat option, but you're craving steak, so you toss a sirloin on the grill and you vow to make over your diet - tomorrow.

Well, guess what? When it comes to eat-right pitfalls, you didn't do so badly today. Many foods including coffee, beef and mushrooms have developed undeserved reputations for being either dietary disasters (all that caffeine! Too fatty!) or, in the case of mushrooms, nutritional wimps. But the latest research proves that they along with three other maligned products have a lot to offer and deserve a place on your plate.

Coffee
The bad rap, it's a beverage that makes you anxious and jittery. The healthy reality with more antioxidants per sips than green or black tea, your daily mug of java caffeinated or decaffeinated may actually protect against age-related diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, according to a study in the Journal of Agricultural Chemistry. Additional research shows coffee may also reduce the risk for heart disease, breast cancer, asthma, gallstones and even cavities and diabetes. A recent report in the journal Diabetes Care found that women who drink a cup of coffee a day lower their odds for diabetes by 13 per cent; having two to three cups cuts the risk by 42 per cent. Just make sure you limit the add-ins, as loading your cup with sugars, syrups and cream can negate coffee's health benefits.

Coffee Tip
Try cafe au lait: A 180ml cup contains 10 per cent of your daily calcium.

Beef
The bad rap, every bite is chock-full of artery clogging saturated fat and tons of calories. The healthy reality is fine for women to eat up four 85g servings of lean beef a week. (The least fatty cuts are marked "loin" or "round.") During the last decade, the cattle industry has changed the way cows are fed and raised to produce leaner meat.

The result: Many cuts of beef are about 20 per cent less fatty and have a healthier ratio of "good" and "bad" fats than they used to. Plus, beef contains conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), a healthy fat that may lower LDL ("bad") cholesterol levels, control weight gain and inhibit cancer, researchers say. That means topping a plate of mixed greens with 85g of thinly sliced sirloin or pairing the same portion of steak with a sweet potato for dinner may actually be a step toward disease prevention. And, not only does that modest serving provide 39 per cent of the vitamin B12 your body requires daily, but it also delivers 36 per cent of your daily zinc and 14 per cent of your daily iron, two minerals that few women get enough of. Choose "grass-fed" beef whenever possible: It contains twice as much CLA and heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids as grain-fed varieties.

Potatoes
The bad rap, this high-carb food piles on the kilos. The healthy reality is a medium-baked potato has just 160 calories and nearly 4g of fiber. Plus, potatoes ranked the highest on a satiety index developed by researchers, beating out 37 other foods, including brown rice, whole-grain bread and whole-wheat pasta.

Low-carb dieters often shun potatoes because they're high on a scale called the glycemic index (Gl), a measure of how quickly they raise blood sugar levels. Some experts say that high-Gl foods trigger hunger and lead to an overproduction of insulin, which may cause the body to store fatter. But the theory is controversial. And, in any case, Gl is only a factor if you had a plain baked potato and nothing else. Once you top it with something, bean salsa or sauteed vegetables, for instance or eat it with other foods as part of a meal, your body takes longer to digest it and it doesn't cause a dramatic spike in blood sugar levels.

Potato Tip
Eat the skin: You'll get almost twice the fiber and four times as much iron compared to if you peeled your spuds.

Dark Poultry
The bad rap, is that drumstick may be more moist and tastier than the breast, but all that fat makes it a dietary no-no. the healthy reality, ounce for ounce, dark poultry does contain three times more fat than white meat, but those extra grams are primarily unsaturated. In addition, an 85g serving of thigh meat provides nearly 25 per cent more iron, twice the riboflavin and more than twice the zinc than the same portion of breast meat and contributes just 38 more calories. No matter what your poultry preference, don't eat the skin; it adds 61 calories and 8g of fat (mostly saturated). Leave it on during cooking, though; studies show cooking poultry with the skin doesn't make a difference in meat fat content, but does result in a juicier bird.

Shrimp
The bad rap, they're swimming with artery-clogging cholesterol, putting you at risk for heart disease. The healthy reality, shrimp can be heart-healthy really! They contain less than 1g of saturated fat per 85g serving (about 15 shrimp), and it's saturated fat, not dietary cholesterol, that's primarily to blame for increasing blood lipid levels.

But what shrimp do have may be even more important than what they don't: As one of the few foods naturally rich in vitamin D, shrimp contain more of the bone-building nutrient than a 240ml glass of milk, about one-third of your daily recommended dose.

And, since a full 36 per cent of us don't get the vitamin D we need (putting us at risk for depression, hypertension, osteoporosis and autoimmune disorders), any food that provides that much should be a regular part of your diet.

If recent headlines have you worried about the mercury levels in fish and shrimp is on the list of lowest mercury seafood. That means you can have up to four 85g servings per week without worrying about mercury’s potential harm to your or an unborn child's nervous system.

Mushrooms
The bad rap, these fungi lack vitamins and belong in the same "nutritional black hole" category with iceberg lettuce. The healthy reality, mushrooms have some serious disease-fighting potential. Button, crimini, shiitake, maitake and king oyster mushrooms all contain a substance that helps stimulate white blood cells to ramp up production of a key cancer-destroying chemical.

The study also showed that mushrooms contribute a wide variety of nutrients to our diets; just 85g (about five large mushrooms) provide more than 10 per cent of the daily recommended intake for riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B5, copper and potassium, all for less than a mere 30 calories.

Mushroom Tip
Don't rinse: Instead, wipe dirt off with a damp paper towel. Too much water makes these fungi slimy.