We know they’re not perfect, of course. But they’ve got to be better than that tempting candy bar, right?

Wrong!

I’m not actually going to recommend candy bars, but it turns out that many of the “healthier” snack and energy bars actually pack as much sugar as candy — and in some cases, they have even more.

The “healthy” Clif’s Crunchy Peanut Butter bar, for example, has 21 grams of sugar — the same amount of sugar you’ll find in a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. The Clif bar has less fat, but it also has more calories.

Some of the other Clif bars have 25 grams of sugar –even more than the 24 grams you’ll find in a Hershey’s bar.

I don’t want to just pick on Clif bar here, because it’s not the only offender in the snack bar section. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find anything worth eating at all.

Balance Bars have up to 18 grams of sugar, while some of the Odwalla bars have 17 grams. Luna bars have up to 13 grams of sugar, and that old standby — the Power Bar — can have a whopping 30 grams of sugar.

That’s actually 25 percent more sugar than that Hershey bar I mentioned earlier!

Cereal bars aren’t much better, and that includes the ones that trade on supposedly healthy brand names.

Special K, for example, is marketed as a healthy cereal that can even help you to lose weight. In reality, it’s just another bowl of empty carbs — and with 4 grams of sugar per cup, it’s not exactly low in sugar either.

But that’s nothing next to Special K bars, which can have up to double the sugar of the cereal.

You’re better off making your own snacks at home. Sure, they’re a little more work, but they will be a lot healthier and a whole lot cheaper, too.

Hello, gut.

But there’s one place you want as fat as can be, and that’s right inside your skull. Your brain is actually 60 percent fat — and the most critical fats of all when it comes to brain health are the omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil.

Now, a new study confirms just how important those fats are for your thinker: People with the lowest levels have aging, shrinking brains and problems remembering what they had for breakfast.

Since the most prominent fat in your brain is DHA, the study of 1,575 dementia-free seniors also finds that it’s the most important one for brain health. The 25 percent with the lowest blood levels of DHA had the smallest brain volumes.

And, yes — when it comes to brains, bigger is definitely better.

Younger is better, too. And while you can’t turn back the clock, your brain can get old before its time — and seniors with the lowest DHA levels had brains that seemed two years older, according to the study in Neurology.

That’s what’s going on inside the head.

Out in the real world, seniors with the lowest omega-3 levels did worse on just about every test thrown their way — including tests on visual memory as well as executive functions such as problem-solving, multitasking, and abstract thought.

Along with charging your thinking cap, omega-3 fatty acids can also help slash your risk of heart problems, stroke, macular degeneration, and more. They can even lower your risk of gum disease.

But let’s stick to the brain today.

In addition to those omega-3s, be sure to get plenty of B vitamins. Studies have shown that seniors who get high levels of B6, B12 and folate have bigger brains, better memory, and more overall protection from dementia’s top risk factors.

You can read more about that B vitamin and dementia link right here.

Meats tend to be richest in B vitamins, but the best way to get what your brain needs is with a quality B complex from a trusted vitamin maker.

Similarly, you can get omega-3 fatty acids from a diet rich in fatty fish — but since most people don’t eat nearly enough salmon, herring, and anchovies, add an omega-3 supplement to your shopping list if you’re not taking one already.

For one more way to power up your grey matter, keep reading.

Today, you don’t have to be rich (or even a man) to suffer from gout — just fat. And since more people are fatter than ever before, more people are also battling the foot pain that marks this condition.

New numbers show that 4 percent — or 8.3 million Americans — fought gout in 2008, compared to just 1 percent between 1988 and 1994.

That’s a 400-percent increase inside of a generation — and in the coming years, it could get even worse. Recent government numbers show 21 percent of us have high levels of the uric acid responsible for gout.

That’s an increase of 700 percent from the surveys taken between 1988 and 1994.

But whatever you do, don’t turn to Big Pharma’s solution for gout. Drugs designed to treat the problem have been known to cause nausea, joint pain, and even liver problems. They’ve also been linked to chest pain, vomiting, bruising, constipation, allergic reactions, and even more gout flare-ups.

There are better ways to beat gout, and you can get some of the most immediate relief with something that was often dismissed as a folk remedy — until a recent study found it really worked.

Researchers say 20 cherries eaten over 48 hours can reduce the risk of a gout attack by 50 percent, while cherry extract slashed the odds by 40 percent. I’ve noticed cherry juice popping up on supermarket shelves, so feel free to give that a try. Just make sure it’s 100 percent cherry juice and not cherry-flavored sugar water.

If you don’t have any cherries handy, try celery. Celery can keep the enzyme that produces uric acid in check, and some people have reported gout relief from as little as a single stalk.

Others need more — nearly an entire bunch — and all the peanut butter in the world won’t make it any easier to eat that much. If that’s the case, try 75mg of celery seed extract, twice a day, instead.

You don’t have to be rich to get gout. And since celery — and celery seed — is cheap and plentiful, you don’t have to be rich to beat it, either.

It’s fat in your diet.

We’ve known for ages that the brain thrives on healthy fats, and now researchers say they can actually see the reaction unfold — and that the right fatty acids can dramatically raise spirits in minutes.

The researchers recruited 12 healthy, non-obese volunteers and randomly assigned them to get either a solution of fatty acids or saline during a series of mood-altering experiments.

To make sure no one knew whether they were getting the fatty acids or the saline solution, the volunteers were fed via gastric tubes. (Aren’t you glad you didn’t volunteer for this study?)

The volunteers also had to listen to depressing music and watch images of sad faces, all while connected to functional MRI machines so researchers could watch for changes in brain activity as the experiments unfolded.

The researchers wrote in the Journal of Clinical Investigation that the music and pictures caused moods to dip by an average of 2.5 points on a 10-point scale before anyone was given either solution.

Once those gastric tubes kicked in, however, the volunteers given fatty acids saw a quick rebound — eventually losing just one point on that 10-point scale.

The saline group, on the other hand, saw no changes.

The MRIs backed up what the patients reported: The music and images altered brain activity by up to 4 percent, which may not sound like much, but actually represents a huge change.

Once again, fatty acids reversed the negative activity, leading to changes in less than one percent of the brain.

Compare that to antidepressant drugs, which can take weeks to work — if they even work at all (and since most of them barely beat placebos in studies, don’t bet your dinner on it).

It’s not the first link between fatty food and a good mood. A 1998 study found that a single month of low-fat dieting was enough to boost anger and hostility. Other studies have linked low cholesterol – both in the diet and in the blood — to depression and even suicide.

Yet the mainstream — and even the U.S. government — wants you to get less of those fats?

I’d get angry… but I can’t right now. I just had a steak.