Issue No. 030 · Chips

Potato chips beat rice cakes

The snack every diet banned scored lower than the one every diet approved. Here are three snack-aisle swaps, ranked.

I lived on rice cakes.

Every diet I tried put them on the safe list. Chips went on the banned list, right next to cookies.

So I checked the numbers myself.

Plain rice cakes score 82 on the glycemic index. Potato chips score 51. That puts the banned snack 31 points below the safe one… and I had been chewing the wrong one for years.

In other words, the diet books had the lists backward.

The reason is simple. Rice cakes are puffed with heat and pressure, and that breaks the starch open so your gut turns it into glucose fast. They have almost no fat, fiber, or protein to slow it down.

But you do not have to live on either one. Here are three snack-aisle swaps, from the smallest win to the biggest.

GI values are published lab averages, not personal glucose monitor results. Your response may differ. This is not medical advice, so talk to your doctor before changing how you manage your blood sugar.

Soda crackers are white flour, baked thin and dry. Rye crisps are made from whole rye, and the extra fiber may slow how fast the starch reaches your blood.

I top mine with cheese, and the crunch is the same.

This is the swap for the lunch box.

A rye crisp does the same job as a rice cake (a flat, crunchy base for a topping), and it scores 18 points lower. It holds peanut butter, tuna, or avocado without breaking.

Meanwhile… the biggest win was the snack I had been hiding from.

Potato chips are fried, and that fat changes the math. Fat slows how fast your stomach empties, so the starch in the chips trickles into your blood instead of rushing in.

In other words, the oil that got chips banned is the same oil that may soften the spike.

My doctor never told me that part. The only advice I got was to cut them out.

That does not make a family-size bag a health food. A small bowl next to a sandwich is a snack, but the whole bag on the couch is still the whole bag.

Chips beat rice cakes by 31 points.

Here is one honest note. GI is an average from lab tests, so your own number may run higher or lower. The score also ignores salt, and chips carry plenty of it.

If you love rice cakes, keep them. Spread one with peanut butter or hummus, and the protein and fat may blunt the rise.

You were told the crunchy snacks you love are the enemy. Then someone handed you a puffed disk of air and called it safe.

Anyway… you do not have to quit the snack aisle.

So make one swap this week. Trade your afternoon rice cakes for rye crisps with cheese, and see how you feel at 4 p.m. A calmer afternoon may start with a smarter crunch.

Eat everything. Fear nothing.

★ Welcome to the revolution

Jackie