Extruded Snack
Food · Grain · Food, Typed Supps
Light, salty and gone in seconds — which is exactly the design, and exactly why a bag disappears so easily.
Stage by stage
- Intake (Clears in seconds): The foam collapses under saliva almost instantly, giving very little oral processing time.
- Digestion (Starch already opened): Extrusion fully gelatinises the maize starch, so digestion is unusually rapid.
- Bloodstream (Fast glucose and fat): Glucose rises within about half an hour; fat absorbs alongside it.
- Whole body (Sodium load): 1000mg sodium per 100g is around half a day's suggested maximum, cleared by the kidneys over 24 hours.
Time to effect
- Under an hour: Blood glucose rises within about 30 minutes; the sodium load clears over the following day.
Allergens
None of the fourteen major allergens. May contain: Celery, Gluten, Milk, Mustard, Soya. 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, Gluten-free.
Satiety
79 on the satiety index, where white bread is 100 — low. 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 £2.5 per kg, as a band midpoint rather than a price.
Key nutrients
- Refined maize starch
- Sodium
- Fat
Nutrition per 100g
- Calories: 487
- Protein: 8.8g
- Carbohydrate: 53.5g
- of which sugars: 2.5g
- Fat: 25.8g
- of which saturated: 11.3g
- Fibre: 3.2g
- Sodium: 1000mg
Food vs. supplement
Not applicable. The calcium and B12 on the label come from cheese powder, and the beta-carotene from colouring; neither makes this a source of anything.
Kitchen tip
Nothing to prepare. The useful habit is decanting a portion into a bowl — the driver of overconsumption here is eating rate, not hunger.
Common myth
"Baked ones are a healthy version." In reality: Baking lowers the fat but leaves the fully gelatinised refined starch and the surface salt intact — and sodium in baked versions is often unchanged or higher, since seasoning does more of the flavour work once fat comes out.
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