Spending more time at home means easier access to food, especially unplanned extras, like snacks. Ideally snacks are chosen from core foods - things like a piece of fruit, a handful of nuts, a hard-boiled egg or a slice of wholegrain bread - and make a valuable nutrient contribution to our diet. More popular options like crispy, crunchy crisps and cookies don’t give us much except starchy carbohydrate that add to the glycemic load of the diet. Here we’ve taken a look at how the GI and GL of starchy snack foods compares.
Popcorn (commercial microwave popcorn)
GI 51-67
Serving: 1 small bag (25g/1oz)
Potato chips/crisps
GI 51-60
Serving: 1 single serve bag (50g/1 ¾oz)
Flavoured extruded crispy packaged snack
GI 74-90
Serving: 1 single serve bag (50g/1 ¾oz)
Wholegrain rye crackers
GI 59-74
Serving: 2 large crackers (20g/ ¾oz)
Plain crackers - white flour based, e.g., Soda cracker or Sao
GI 63-78
Serving: 3 large, or 6 small crackers (20g/ ¾oz)
Puffed Rice cake
GI 82-91
Serving: 3 thick or 5 thin rice cakes (30g/1oz)
Oatmeal biscuit or cookie
GI 45-55
Serving: 2 cookies (20g/3/4 oz)
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Kaye Foster-Powell is an Accredited Practising Dietitian who has worked with people with diabetes for 30 years. She was co-author of the original series of international, best-selling books on the glycemic index. She conducts a specialized private practice for people with diabetes in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, Australia.
Contact: Via her website.