The rice cakes you eat for breakfast fuel less than you think

Rice or corn cakes are the trendy food, and through marketing we perceive them as healthy. You'll find all sorts: rice and corn with salt, with yogurt, with white chocolate, with dark chocolate... There are also organic ones. The reality is that they are an ultra-processed food: rice and corn are industrially subjected to high temperatures, and precisely because of this, the starch chain is broken, which causes the food to turn into sugar when we ingest it. If they add salt, it's to disguise the sweetening of the ultra-processed rice and corn, but if they add yogurt or chocolates, they increase the sweetness. For all these reasons, they are less filling than a slice of bread with extra virgin olive oil, of which, if we count the ingredients, there are four: flour, water, salt, and oil. "The nutritional labels of the cakes do not reflect the real sugar content from the processing of rice and corn because they do not take into account the industrial method with which they have been cooked," explains dietitian-nutritionist Anna Costa, who adds that they are regulatory labels, but, despite this, they do not fully reflect reality."Popcorn are an ultra-processed product even when they only contain two ingredients, rice and salt," says Costa, who adds that the explanation is the high temperatures to which the industry subjects the two foods. "If it takes us ten minutes at home to make popcorn, the industry takes less than a minute, and for this reason, the starches, which we have to imagine as a pearl necklace, break and the sugars become individualized," explains the nutritionist. When we eat them, if we don't accompany them with any other food, they will cause a blood sugar spike, a hyperglycemia, because the individualized sugar from the popcorn quickly passes into the blood. The body, by definition, does not like such high sugar spikes, because the pancreas has to respond, it has to play the role of a solver, which means producing insulin to counteract it. Of course, popcorn eaten exceptionally cannot have more consequences, as stated by the dietitian-nutritionist Anna Grífols, but as a regular food, yes. "The excess glucose in the blood is transformed into triglycerides, which go to the arteries in the form of particles known as bad cholesterol, with all the consequences it entails," says the dietitian-nutritionist Anna Costa. Ideal for athletes

Finally, as a source of processed carbohydrates, there may be some situations where they can be "interesting to eat, because in nutrition the most important thing is not only the food but the whole diet and the context in which we consume it," says dietitian-nutritionist Anna Grífols. The fact is that for athletes "it can be useful before or during exercise, because they provide quick energy and are easy to digest; moreover, they help increase sodium intake." For non-athletes, if we want to eat them, the recommendation is to combine them with protein, fiber, or healthy fats. If not, they generate little satiety, leaving you hungry and thirsty shortly after, because the body has converted them solely into sugars.