Beware of Bagels

If you told me to pick one thing to eat every day, three meals a day, forever, I would probably choose a bagel with cream cheese (assuming I didn’t have to factor in diabetes). 

Before diabetes, bagels were one of my staples.  And while I don’t have a hard time avoiding carbs in general, if there are bagels in the room, the best thing for me to do is get away since bagels are about as high in carb as it gets.  In fact, one bagel can have as many carbs as four slices of bread.  A whole wheat Bruegger’s bagel has 61 grams of carb.  A Dunkin Donuts multigrain bagel has 65 grams of carb and contains high fructose corn syrup!  A whole grain bagel at Panera Bread has 67 grams of carb. (Apparently that myth about all the carbs falling out through the hole in the middle just isn’t true.)

If you’re going to have a sandwich, carb-wise, a bagel isn’t your best choice.  Unless you do as my grandmother (who was always on a diet) used to do: cut the bagel in half, dig out the delicious doughy middle and just eat the shell. 

Jessica Apple

Jessica Apple grew up in Houston. She studied Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan, and completed an MA in the same field at the Hebrew University. She began to write and publish short stories while a student, and has continued to write essays and fiction while raising her three sons (and many pets).

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Jessica Apple

Jessica Apple grew up in Houston. She studied Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan, and completed an MA in the same field at the Hebrew University. She began to write and publish short stories while a student, and continues to write essays and fiction while raising her three sons (and many pets). Jessica’s work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Financial Times Magazine, The Southern Review, The Bellevue Literary Review, Tablet Magazine, and elsewhere. She is the diabetes correspondent for The Faster Times. In 2009 she and her husband, both type 1 diabetics, founded A Sweet Life, where she serves as editor-in-chief. Jessica loves spending time with her sons, cooking with her husband, playing with her cats, reading, biking, drinking coffee, and whenever possible, taking a nap. Follow Jessica on Twitter (@jessapple)