Bagel

Food · Grain · Food, Typed Supps

Denser than it looks, and one bagel is usually two serves of bread.

Stage by stage

Boiled first (The crust): Boiling sets the surface starch, which is what stops the crumb opening up.
Dense (Stomach): A 90 g bagel is two to three slices of bread by weight.
Sodium (Circulation): 490 mg per 100 g, and around 440 mg in one bagel.
Fortification (Small intestine): 233 mcg folate and 0.6 mg thiamin per 100 g, from the same mandate.

Timing

Nothing to time. Toasted values read higher only because water was driven off; the mass you eat has not changed.

Time to effect

15–30 min: Glycaemic peak.
Per bagel: Around 240 calories and 440 mg sodium at 90 g.

Allergens

Contains: Gluten. May contain: Sesame. Derived from what this food is, not from a product label.

Eating patterns

Fits: Vegan, Vegetarian, Pescatarian, Halal, Kosher. Depends on the product: Low-FODMAP.

Satiety

132 on the satiety index, where white bread is 100 — moderate. Modelled from the Holt et al. (1995) measurements.

Environmental footprint

1.6 kg CO2e and 648 litres of freshwater per kg, matched to "Wheat & rye" in Poore & Nemecek (2018), Science 360.

Cost band

Cheap — roughly £3 per kg, as a band midpoint rather than a price.

Key nutrients

Folate
Protein
Thiamin

Nutrition per 100g

Calories: 265
Protein: 10.4g
Carbohydrate: 50.7g
of which sugars: 6.2g
Fat: 1.4g
of which saturated: 0.2g
Fibre: 3.1g
Sodium: 490mg

Food vs. supplement

Counting bread by items rather than by weight is one of the more reliable sources of error in a food diary, and bagels are where it is largest — a single item that weighs as much as three slices.

Kitchen tip

Toasted figures look higher than untoasted, and nothing was added — toasting only drove off water.

Common myth

“One bagel, one bread serve.” In reality: A commercial bagel is around 90 g, which is two to three slices of bread by weight — the boiling step before baking is what makes it that dense. Counting it as one item is one of the more consistent underestimates in a food diary. It is perfectly good bread; it is just more of it than it looks.