A rice cake is a simple snack food made of puffed brown rice. While the simplest rice cakes are plain and unsalted, the rice cake market includes a range of flavors from sweet to savory. Rice cakes are a nutritious snack, and are a good accompaniment to a variety of foods.
Calories
Compared to other starchy products, rice cakes are lower in calories per serving. For this reason, many dieters use rice cakes as a substitute for bread by making an open-faced sandwich out of a rice cake with a spread on top. A plain large rice cake has about 35 calories. Seasoned rice cakes are usually higher in calories because of the extra sugar or fat in the flavoring. A large caramel- or cheese-flavored rice cake has about 50 calories.
Carbohydrates
Since plain rice cakes have almost no fat and not much protein, carbohydrates are their main source of calories. These are complex carbohydrates, and the only simple sugars in rice cakes are from added sugars in seasoned rice cakes. Rice cakes have less than a gram of fiber per serving. A plain large cake has about 7 grams of carbohydrates.
Protein
The protein in rice cakes is incomplete. This means that rice cakes do not contain adequate proportions of the essential amino acids that you need to eat regularly. You can take advantage the principle of complementary proteins in order to use rice cakes to satisfy your protein needs. If you eat rice along with legumes like beans, you will be eating a complete protein because the beans supply the amino acid lysine in which the rice cakes are low. A plain large rice cake has about 1 gram of protein.
Whole Grain
The puffed rice that forms rice cakes is a whole grain. Unlike refined grains, unprocessed whole grains still include the components of the bran, the germ, and endosperm. The Dietary Guidelines recommendation is to make half of your grains whole, so rice cakes can help you meet this recommendation. A large plain rice cake made of 100% whole grain rice has 9 grams of whole grains per serving.
Vitamins and Minerals
Unsalted rice cakes are low in sodium, which is a benefit for many Americans. Plain rice cakes are also low in most other vitamins and minerals. They have small amounts of niacin (4% US RDA), magnesium (3% US RDA), and phosphorus (3% US RDA), as well as some manganese (17% US RDA).
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