Why are ritz crackers so good

Simple carbohydrates, such as those in starches and sugar, break down very quickly in your body. This causes the need for insulin to be released to vacuum up all of the extra sugar.

When your blood sugar levels then drop, it can cause your brain to signal hunger. This constant fluctuation is unhealthy and can lead to long-term problems such as Type 2 diabetes. Complex carbohydrates, such as those found in whole grains, offer not only fuel for your body and brain, but they contain a fair amount of fiber.

Fiber is important for healthy elimination, and it also helps slow down the absorption of sugar and decreases the need for extra insulin to be released. So, while Ritz crackers are delicious, you're better off with higher-calorie Triscuit, because of the added fiber these crackers contain. Read more: List of Good and Bad Carbs. Are Ritz Crackers Healthy? By Brynne Chandler Updated January 28, Reviewed by Sylvie Tremblay, MSc. Sylvie Tremblay, MSc. Sylvie Tremblay holds a Master of Science in molecular and cellular biology, and has years of experience as a cancer researcher and geneticist.

Brynne Chandler. Brynne Chandler is an avid runner, swimmer and occasional weight-lifter who fell in love with all things fitness related while writing TV Animation in Los Angeles. It came across as a sudden warmth, like too little unsalted butter on semi-toasted white bread. Perhaps because this butter flavor was not enhanced with artificiality, it was not particularly detectable. Looking for more helpful tips?

Sign up for our newsletter to get daily recipes and food news in your inbox! These struck me as Kellogg's hybridized foray into water crackers—a posher entertainment cracker line, with a noticeably less homey feel to the box, where they're described as "lightly toasted" and low in cholesterol and saturated fat. For one, they also had plenty of docking holes to keep the shape uniform while baking and felt on the sturdier side, compressed for density.

However, the differences began at first bite, since these break off in a brittle fashion on impact. The other differentiating characteristics included visible flakes of salt on each cracker, flakes that were more often in the holes than on surfaces whose color was more gold than Club and Town House bakes but on par with Ritz. The darker color made me hopeful for a warm, pronounced butter flavor, but that was not to be. Past the first break and the hit of salt, it feels kind of insubstantial in your mouth, powdering away unexpectedly and melting fast into a smooth, malted flavor.

In between the first bite and the fade-away, though, there isn't much. This natural foods brand introduced these round, highly familiar "buttery rich crackers" with a "slightly sweet, toasted taste" in , touting an absence of GMOs and artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives. They don't use corn syrup, either, but nor do they use real butter, instead opting for palm oil for the latter and swapping two types of sugar for the former.

Takes a bit of the shine off that health halo. These crackers came in a foil bag within a cardboard box and emerged from it a pleasing mellow yellow color.

These were noticeably heavier than Ritz crackers and less puffy, with fewer air pockets and therefore more consistency. This created a nice crunch with a satisfying break that wasn't crumbly.

It's just flaky enough too, to make it a good happy medium for your charcuterie—stable to hold, strong to top, and make for a solid snack all on their own. Tastewise, these crackers offered a warm open with tinges of a salt whose level varies between bites. There's a bit of an oily element to them, but that doesn't detract from the savory richness and hint of cheesiness. These were neck-and-neck with their fellow "healthier" competitor with just as many thinly veiled references to Ritz crackers.

The label promises a cracker that's flaky, crispy, "oven-baked golden brown" and featuring the "authentic delicious taste you love. Well, the packaging helps to keep them fresh if not whole, since they're also loosely bagged in foil in a box. The ratio of broken crackers really wasn't bad, though, especially given that they have a good flakiness to them that you'd think would be more delicate.

Their smaller diameter definitely contributed to their structural integrity. They're visually appealing from the first grab, the darkest toasted of the bunch with salt granules sparkling from the sparse docking holes. These cues led to an expectation of a more pronounced saltiness and richness, but it wasn't to be. These crackers weren't very buttery nor savory. Plus, they reminded me of dry toast in the way that it's sweet in the finish but then leaves traces of cardboard on the tongue when eaten plain and in volume.

But like a good toast, the inoffensiveness grows on you, especially paired with a great texture that provided a sharp, hard, and satisfying crunch. As with all iconic brands and products, if you introduce one change, you're opening the doors to accusations of recipe tweaking. Since these beloved rectangular crackers invented by Godfrey Keebler himself subtly switched the Keebler tree to the Kellogg's script, many consumers have begun complaining that the taste had changed, too.

Officials have assured the public that no alterations have been made, and we're inclined to believe them. They still come in paper-thin clear sleeves and that recognizable green packaging. I do wish they didn't print the nutrition facts on the tear-away section of the box, and that they disclosed nutrition facts per stack, but that's likely not an accident. Ritz are the perfect balance of salty, crispy, and buttery, and since they contain no actual butter even vegans can eat them! Whether you use them as an edible charcuterie board or as a cheese knife , Ritz crackers are always the life of the party.

Anything that's been on this Earth for the better part of nine decades is going to have some stories to show for it, and Ritz are no exception. The story of Ritz crackers follows the most important events in American history, from the industrialization of the 19th century to the tribulations of the Great Depression and the triumph of packaged convenience foods after World War II.

Ritz's manufacturer Nabisco has been one of the biggest players in American snacks for longer than any of us has been alive, and they didn't always play fair. This is the untold truth of Ritz crackers. The American cracker that we all know and love today originated in the late 18th century as a New England variation on hardtack. An essay in the New England Historical Society explains that hardtack, a kind of bread baked until it has no water content left, has been a staple of soldiers' and sailors' rations for hundreds of years.

Hardtack was prized for its shelf life, surviving decades if stored properly. However, it was hard as a rock and not very tasty. Bakers in New England solved this problem by adding leavening, producing a tasty cracker more like what we enjoy today. Former seaman Josiah Bent started producing leavened crackers in , further refining the so-called "common cracker" by manufacturing smaller water crackers. Bent's bakery was one of several operations in the Northeast that consolidated into the New York Biscuit Company, which merged with another bakery to form the National Biscuit Company, or Nabisco, in via ThoughtCo.

Nabisco went on to dominate the cracker industry, developing Ritz crackers in via Food Timeline. When Ritz crackers were released at the height of the Great Depression, the name was associated with the epitome of luxury. Hotelier Cesar Ritz became famous in the first part of the 20th century for his fancy hotels, and anything calling itself Ritz in the s was advertising itself as high-class. The book "A Century of American Icons" says that Nabisco capitalized on the brand's country club connotations in its early advertising, showing golfers and passengers on a luxury cruise ship being served Ritz crackers by uniformed attendants.

The humble crackers really were perceived as fancy at the time, showing up on the menu at New York's swanky Waldorf-Astoria hotel. Americans with tight wallets during the Great Depression viewed Ritz as an affordable way to get a little taste of a wealthy lifestyle. A mere 19 cents could procure a box of the same cracker that was being served to robber barons eating at expensive hotels.

Ritz's advertising allowed consumers to fantasize about better times in the middle of great difficulties. Although Nabisco leveraged the luxurious reputation of the Ritz hotel brand in its ads, the crackers aren't actually named after Cesar Ritz's empire.

Food and Wine writes that Nabisco commercial artist Sydney S. Stern was given one weekend to come up with a name and logo for the company's new buttery cracker. Pressed for time, the harried designer looked inside his hat and saw a pleasant circular logo on his hatband tag. Inspired, he painted the iconic blue and yellow Ritz logo. Initially, the higher-ups at Nabisco were worried that giving their cracker too rich of an image would backfire with customers, but as we've seen, Americans responded well to the elitist marketing.

Sydney's original design stuck, and though details have been changed over the years, the Ritz logo today is still very similar to the version. Sydney S. Stern was something of a package design savant, and Ritz wasn't his only iconic invention. He also designed the immediately recognizable Animal Cracker circus box as well as an updated logo for Shredded Wheat. Although Ritz's version ended up being the most popular butter cracker in the world, it was not the first.