Bagels with cream cheese are an affordable, quick, and comforting breakfast. However, this meal’s high carb load and lack of protein and fiber can negatively affect your blood sugar, leaving you feeling hungry again soon after eating.
A classic bagel is made with refined white flour, water, yeast, and salt. While sizes vary, many bagels are quite large and contain multiple servings of carbohydrates.
“Eating a bagel causes a rapid and significant rise in blood glucose due to it being a dense, high–glycemic index carbohydrate with very little fiber, ” Elizabeth Rubin, M.D., the Clinical Advisor at Embers Recovery in Phoenix, AZ, told Health.
Additionally, cream cheese is a high-fat dairy product that people commonly spread on bagels [. It lacks protein, a key nutrient that helps stabilize blood sugar and keep you feeling full after eating.
Here are the basic nutritional facts for an average 131-gram bagel and a 1-ounce (oz) serving of cream cheese:
| Bagel | Cream cheese | Combined | |
| Calories | 364 | 99.2 | 463.2 |
| Protein | 13.9 grams (g) | 1.74 g | 15.64 g |
| Carbohyrates | 69.4 g | 1.56 g | 70.96 g |
| Fat | 2.75 g | 9.75 g | 12.5 g |
| Fiber | 3.01 g | 0 g | 3.01 g |
Fiber and protein help slow digestion and the release of sugar into your blood. Foods lower in protein and fiber, like bagels, are digested quickly and have a high glycemic index (GI), which means they raise blood sugar levels rapidly. The GI ranges from 0-100. The higher the number, the greater the impact on blood sugar. A bagel has a GI of around 72, which is considered high.
“This sharp glucose spike triggers a strong insulin response, which can later lead to a rebound drop in blood sugar that leaves many people feeling tired, hungry, or irritable only a couple of hours later,” said Rubin.
Does Adding Cream Cheese Help?
Fats, like cream cheese, slightly slow digestion and lower the GI of high-carbohydrate foods, but not as drastically as protein, and not enough to negate the high carbohydrate load.
“The effect is limited because the fat quantity is relatively small compared to the large amount of refined carbs in bagels,” said Rubin. “You need protein and fiber to meaningfully blunt the blood sugar spike from a bagel, and fat alone won’t do the job.”
Even though bagels are high in carbs and low in filling nutrients like protein and fiber, you don’t need to give them up altogether.
Making a few adjustments to your typical bagel order can help keep your blood sugar steadier and your hunger in check.
- Pair your bagel with protein: Pair it with a food that packs at least 15 grams of protein. “Pairing a bagel with protein, such as eggs, smoked salmon, cottage cheese, or even a protein-rich nut butter, helps stabilize post-meal glucose levels more effectively than cream cheese alone,” said Rubin.
- Eat half the bagel or order it “scooped:” Enjoying half of the bagel is a simple way to reduce its carb load. Scooping out your bagel before adding your fillings can also reduce the carb load by about half.
- Add soluble fiber: Soluble fiber forms a gel in your digestive tract, so it’s particularly effective for lowering blood sugar levels. Bagel-friendly pairings rich in soluble fiber include: avocados, hummus, chia seeds, mashed berries, and more.
- Make your own lower-carb, higher-protein bagels: Some recipes using simple ingredients like cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, and almond flour pack around 20 grams of protein and less than a single serving of carbs per bagel.
