50 Unhealthiest Desserts on the Planet

Whether you crave a chunky chocolate chip cookie, a warm mug cake, or a creamy gelato post-dinner, there's a multitude of unhealthy desserts littering supermarket shelves. While it's OK to indulge in your sweet tooth every once in a while, doing so regularly can lead you to pack on the pounds and put yourself at risk for metabolic diseases, especially when you choose some of these overly indulgent desserts we rounded up.
If you're hankering for something sweet after dinner, "choose a dessert that contains zero artificial sweeteners, less than 10 grams of added sugars, and no more than 150 calories," says Jim White, RD, ACSM Health Fitness Instructor. If it has 3 grams of fiber and more than 5 grams a protein, that's a bonus."
All of the store-bought picks we included here contain either more than 150 calories or over 10 grams of sugar per serving—but the majority fit into both categories. We divided them into categories of ice cream, candy bars, frozen cakes and pies, cookies, and packaged pastries. Steer clear and choose a scoop of healthy ice cream instead—or go the homemade route. White likes yogurt with fruit, a banana with dark chocolate and almond butter, or a homemade protein bar with dried cranberries, oats, whey protein, and cocoa for his after-dinner treat. And for a full list of foods to steer clear of, check out The 100 Unhealthiest Foods on the Planet!
Now, here are the 50 unhealthiest desserts.
Ice Cream & Gelato
Talenti Coconut Almond Chocolate Gelato
Talenti describes this flavor as taking your best friends on vacation. Whether you're trying to slim down before a tropical escape or looking for some comfort food on the couch, this caloric pint shouldn't be your pick.
And if you're wondering what other sweet treats you should stay far away from, we ranked the unhealthiest ice cream pints in America, too.
RELATED: Sign up for our newsletter to get daily recipes and food news in your inbox!
Klondike Mrs. Fields Chocolate Chip Cookie Ice Cream Sandwich
Two desserts—Mrs. Fields cookies and ice cream—come together to create a dessert disaster. This dessert mashup carries nearly more than two slices of white bread worth of carbs and more than four teaspoons worth of sugar.
RELATED: Your ultimate restaurant and supermarket survival guide is here!
M&M'S Cookie Sandwiches With Vanilla Ice Cream
Would you spoon more than six teaspoons of sugar into your mouth for dessert? That's what you'll find in this M&M's cookie ice cream sandwich.
RELATED: This 7-day smoothie diet will help you shed those last few pounds.
Blue Bunny Load'd Sundae Bunny Tracks
This frozen dessert is just not worth it. Blue Bunny manages to pack in a meal's worth of calories and more than two days' worth of added sugars. Instead, reach for Blue Bunny's Caramel Mini Swirls. They come in a smaller portion, clocking in at just 140 calories and 10 grams of sugar for each caramel cone.
Talenti Hazelnut Chocolate Chip Gelato
Nutella meets your favorite cookie in this ultra-creamy gelato. But do you think it's worth 330 calories and 8.5 teaspoons worth of sugar? We think not.
RELATED: Learn how to harness the power of tea to lose weight.
Häagen Dazs Dulce de Leche Cookie Squares
You'll find a full day's worth of saturated fat and sugar in these dulce de leche ice cream squares. If you want something cold and swirled with caramel, go for Enlightened's sea salt caramel bar, which contains just 80 calories, 2 grams of fat, and 5 grams of sugar—not to mention, 7 grams of muscle-maintaining protein.
Ben & Jerry's Peanut Butter Cup
You're better off biting into a Snicker's bar. Ben & Jerry's PB ice cream packs in a whopping 32 grams of sugar and absolutely no fiber to help stabilize your blood sugar levels. Go for Halo Top's Peanut Butter Cup ice cream instead, which contains just 330 calories for the whole pint versus Ben & Jerry's 1,400!
Talenti Peanut Butter Fudge Sorbetto
Just because it's dairy-free doesn't mean it will help you keep your weight in check. Talenti manages to swell its sorbetto with 9.75 teaspoons of sugar!
Ben & Jerry's Chubby Hubby
Vanilla malt ice cream meets peanut and fudge-covered pretzels and fudgy peanut swirls in this caloric pint. The outcome? A chubby hubby, no doubt.
Tillamook's Double Nutty Peanut Butter Ice Cream
With your full day's worth of heart-harming saturated fat and 90 more milligrams of sodium than a small order of McDonald's fries, you're better off skipping this pint and indulging in Enlightened's chocolate chip peanut butter pint instead.
Häagen-Dazs Peanut Butter Salted Fudge Ice Cream
Peanut butter can be a wonderful weight-loss food, but it happens to sabotage every ice cream pint on this list of unhealthiest desserts. Häagen-Dazs adds 24 grams of sugar per serving to its pint, which also boasts a seriously high fat content.
Magnum's Double Caramel Bar
This double caramel ice cream bar by Magnum is the ultimate treat. It's filled with luscious caramel and gooey, chocolatey coating, and it's smothered in a cracking milk chocolate shell for both creamy and crunchy textures. However, indulging in this frozen dessert will set you back 270 calories and 17 grams of fat. Go for Magnum's mini version instead.
Magnum Ice Cream, Dark Chocolate Raspberry
If you think you're making the smart choice by choosing a fruity ice cream, think again. Magnum manages to pack in 26 grams of sugar and 15 grams of heart-harming saturated fat into this raspberry chocolate tub. Down the whole pint, and you'll ingest a staggering 1,020 calories, 45 grams of saturated fat, 1.5 grams of trans fat, and 78 grams of sugar!
Candy Bars
Hershey's Cookie Layer Crunch Triple Chocolate King Size Bar
This king-sized bar is layered with milk chocolate, chocolate cookie bits, and chocolate crème—which all amount to over a day's worth of sugar and almost triple the amount of saturated fat than what's in a Snickers bar.
Milka Chocolate Bar Oreo Bar
Riddled with sugar, inflammatory palm oil, and artificial flavors, we see no reason to unwrap this Oreo-studded chocolate bar. Go ahead and dunk an Oreo into milk if you're craving cookies and cream flavor.
RELATED: The easy guide to cutting back on sugar is finally here.
Hershey's Milk Chocolate & Reese's Pieces Candy Bar
We're not fans of this Hershey's bar's nutrition panel, but the ingredient list is just as frightening. Hydrogenated oils, artificial flavors, artificial colors, oh my!
Snickers Crisper
You'll find milk chocolate, peanuts, crisp rice, and caramel in this candy bar. Snickers outdid itself with the Crisper, which houses almost a full day's worth of sugar.
Reese's Crunchers
Munch on these for dessert, and you'll ingest about half a day's worth of saturated fat and sugar. Why not post-game your dinner with a tablespoon of real peanut butter? Not only will you save about 100 calories, but you'll also nourish your body with more heart-healthy monounsaturated fats and save yourself from 17 grams of added sugars!
Caramel M&M's
Just when you thought M&Ms couldn't get any richer, the confectioner decided to crank the sugar up a notch in the form of infusing the chocolate bites with a caramel center. If you're craving the classic combo, go for a square of Alter Eco's Dark Salted Burnt Caramel bar with 70% cocoa.
Hershey's Gold Bar
This Hershey's candy bar houses a boatload of calories coming from sugar and fat. Go for a square of 70% dark chocolate to get that sweet flavor and a dose of disease-fighting antioxidants instead.
Frozen Cakes and Pies
Banquet Cherry Berry Pie
Cherries and berries are chock-full of antioxidants, but you shouldn't rely on this pie to get your free-radical-fighting fix. With a staggering 410 calories per single serving, this pie is a dessert disaster.
Sara Lee Banana Creme Pie
You'll get seven teaspoons worth of sugar in this banana crème pie, thanks to five different sources of the sweet stuff. Yikes!
Banquet Apple Pie
Banquet's apple pie comes in a single-serving package but should be shared with a pal. No one needs 480 milligrams of blood-pressure-spiking sodium and 24 grams of sugar in one sitting!
Edwards Turtle Crème Pie
This decadent cake, found in the freezer section, starts with a chocolate cookie crumb crust and piles on rich caramel, chocolate, pecans, and whipped crème rosettes. These layers will cost you a full day's worth of saturated fat and nearly eight teaspoons worth of sugar.
Marie Callender's Dutch Apple Pie
Marie brags that her streusel-topped pie is made with 100% fresh Fuji apples baked in a made-from-scratch crust, but we're not convinced you'd use hydrogenated soybean oil in your homemade pie.
Sara Lee Chocolate Crème Pie
Besides the absurd calorie and sugar content, this pie lists sugar as the second ingredient and hydrogenated palm oil—a source of inflammatory saturated fat—as the third ingredient. No, thank you!
Trader Joe's Mudd Pie
This pie looks delicious, but it's brimming with sugar and saturated fat. Try one of our healthy pie recipes instead!
Marie Callender's Lattice Peach Pie
This is another fruity pie that's so not worth the caloric damage. Just because Marie Callender concocts her pie with Freestone peaches doesn't mean you should go ahead and indulge in a slice.
Edwards Georgia-Style Pecan Pie
All of Edwards' frozen dessert pies are caloric landmines, but this Georgia Style Pecan Pie takes the cake—er, pie—when it comes to the worst desserts on the planet. If you indulge in a slice every day for just one week, you could expect to tack a full pound onto your frame. Sorry, Edwards, but we're not falling for your southern charm.
Sara Lee Carrot Cake
Carrots are jam-packed with eye- and skin-benefiting vitamin A. However, this cake packs in just 2% of your daily value of the nutrient. Plus, sugar is the first ingredient. Hard pass.
Marie Callender's Southern Pecan Pie
Another Southern favorite, this pecan-studded dessert is brimming with calories, fat, and sugar. Although the serving size is a bit larger than the other Marie Callender's desserts on this list (1/8 of a pie rather than 1/9), this crispy pecan pie still gets the red light because of its outrageous calorie count.
Edwards Key Lime Pie
A staggering 45 grams of sugar—the equivalent of over three heaping tablespoons of maple syrup—sneak into this key lime pie. If you want the tart, refreshing taste of key limes, go for Icelandic Provisions key lime skyr yogurt, which is thick, creamy, and way more satisfying with 15 grams of protein.
Cookies
Mega Stuf Oreos
The standard Oreo serving size is three cookies—however, Nabisco rounded it down to two cookies for these Mega Stuf Oreos. They carry more vanilla creme than the Double Stuf Oreos, which means 5 more grams of sugar and 2 more grams of fat. Go for the Oreo Thins instead—four of them clock in at just 140 calories and 12 grams of sugar.
Nana's Chocolate Chip with Walnuts Cookie
Note that Nana's serving size is for just half a cookie—sneaky, huh? Even if you muster enough willpower to bite into half and save the rest for another day, Nana's cookies don't come in resealable packages, so you're doomed to eat the entire thing. The whole cookie will cost you 360 calories and 18 grams of sugar worth of damage.
Chips Ahoy! Chewy Brownie-Filled Cookies
These processed cookies are nothing like the ones you'd make from scratch. Skip the store-bought stuff and whip up our healthy Chocolate Chip Recipe.
Reese's Crunchy Cookie Big Cup
This king-sized treat isn't fit for royalty. It packs in just as much sugar as a 12-ounce can of Coca-Cola!
Nabisco Chips Ahoy Original Chocolate Chip Cookies

Instead of dunking these chocolate chip cookies into milk, make your own at home. Using a nutritious base such as almond flour and tossing in dark chocolate, concoct a dessert with benefits! You'll save yourself from vegetable oil, high fructose corn syrup, and artificial flavor that's found in Chips Ahoy's recipe.
Mrs. Fields Semi Sweet Chocolate Chip Cookies
These extra-sweet chocolate chip cookies have more than twice the amount of saturated fat as a small order of McDonald's fries and are littered with added sugars. Instead, go for Mrs. Thinster's chocolate chip cookies. Five of these crunchy cookies pack in less sugar and calories than just one of Mrs. Fields' treats!
Pillsbury Cookie Dough with Oreo Pieces
Adding Oreos to cookie dough sounds like a dream, but these cookies are a health nightmare. Stay away!
Pillsbury Ready to Bake! Reese's Peanut Butter Cookie Dough
These treats are riddled with sketchy ingredients such as inflammatory palm oil. We'll give this Pillsbury dessert a hard pass.
Betty Crocker Mug Treats Soft-Baked Chocolate Chip Cookie
A cookie that comes in a mug? This soft-baked spoonable dessert is chock-full of sugar—two days' worth, to be exact.
Packaged Pastries
Hostess Chocolate Cupcakes
Anyone who has ever unwrapped a Hostess cupcake knows they can't stick to just one. The chocolate treat with a creamy filling usually comes in twos. Unwrap two, and you'll ingest 320 calories and 36 grams of sugar.
Entenmann's Jumbo Iced Honey Bun
Don't be fooled by this bun: The nutrition label is only for half the bun, so while it might not seem so bad at first glance, double those numbers, and that's how much is in one honey bun. Nearly 500 calories and all that sugar? This one sweet treat you're going to want to leave on the store shelf.
Entenmann's Rich Frosted Donuts
These cake-style donuts are blanketed with chocolate frosting for the ultimate post-meal experience. Sure, they're extra fudgy and rich, but all that flavor comes from the whopping 20 grams of fat and 17 grams of sugar.
Little Debbie Cosmic Brownies
These nostalgic, candy-studded brownies were the lunchbox staple of every '90s kid, but they shouldn't make it onto your grocery list any time soon. One Cosmic Brownie clocks in at 280 calories and nearly a full day's worth of sugar.
Instead, try making copycat cosmic brownies at home—the recipe is one of our 7 Classic Childhood Snacks You Can Make Yourself.
Little Debbie Cookies & Creme Cakes
These chocolate mini cakes come smothered with vanilla icing and a middle layer of more creme, along with a dusting of cookie crumbles on top. The damage? You'll get 7 more grams of sugar and double plus one more gram of saturated fat than what's in a Snickers bar.
Entenmann's Chocolate Chip Iced Cake
This golden cake may seem innocent compared to some of the other treats on this list—after all, it's got a sprinkling of chocolate chips and a light mocha icing to top it off. However, it packs in more calories per serving than any other cake in Entenmann's line.
Pillsbury Grands! Cinnamon Rolls with Cream Cheese Icing
Whether you pop these warmly-spiced rolls into the oven for a comforting breakfast or a post-dinner treat, you'll be doing your waistline a disservice. One roll drizzled with cream cheese icing packs in a quarter of a day's worth of belly-bloating sodium in addition to the 22 grams of sugar. Plus, you'll find partially hydrogenated oils, which is a sneaky source of trans fat, in this recipe.
Entenmann's Cheese Topped Buns
Sweet buns are already a sugar and fat landmine, but when you add a cream cheese filling, expect the fat content to skyrocket. Just one bun packs in 4.75 teaspoons of sugar and just about as much fat as a packet of hash browns from Burger King.
Betty Crocker Mug Treats Hot Fudge Brownie
At first glance, Betty Crocker's hot fudge mug treat seems like a portion-controlled option, but one glance at the nutrition panel says otherwise. It packs in a whopping 50 grams of sugar—that's two days' worth of the sweet stuff—and the carb equivalent of nearly five slices of white bread.
And for more shopping tips, check out these 30 Cheap Costco Buys That Make the Membership Worth It.