Animal Crackers. With all of the cookies and pastries and snacks in your average vending machine, Animal Crackers often go ignored. But they shouldn't, because of all of the sweet snacks in the vending machine, Animal Crackers are by far the best for you. They've only got about 120 calories per serving and about 2 grams of fat. They're just slightly sweet, wonderfully crunchy, and pretty darned satisfying for 120 calories. You'll miss eating that big chocolate chip cookie, sure, but... your waistline wont.

Vending Foods to Avoid at All Costs

Fried Chips. You didn't expect to see your favorite flavor of Doritos on the "good food" list, did you? Your average bag of fried snack chips will run you about 10 grams of fat and far more calories than you want for a mid-morning snack. And if you get a bag every day... goodbye diet.

"Juice" Drinks. These look innocent, and are covered with pictures of dew-moistened fruits and plump berries. But most of them have way more sugar than they have actual fruit juice. Read the label, and steer clear of anything that's not actual juice. Go for a sugar free tea or fat-free milk instead.

Grandma's Cookies. One packet of those tasty (but small) Grandma's Cookies is almost 400 calories. Enough said.

Poptarts. Poptarts seem like such an easy choice if you've missed breakfast or want a sweet mid-morning snack. After all, how can something with the consistency of cardboard be high calorie? Well, they are. Your average Poptart has about 210 calories... which means that the 2-tart package you just ate was 420 calories. That's not much more than two Snickers bars!

Don't let your local vending machine ruin your waistline. Armed with a little knowledge about the right choices, it's easy to have a healthier snack on the run.

This article was written by Shawn Wilson, a member of the customer support team at Datepad, where internet dating is always free. Datepad has a massive directory of informative dating articles along with a great list of dating site reviews on their dating blog.