● Food Intelligence · Snack
Across 4,216 single-item logs where members ate potato chips alone, the average glucose peak was +43.3 mg/dL — with 68.7% of responses exceeding +30 mg/dL. Add a high-carb load (≥60g) and peaks climb ~24% higher; eat them as a night snack and the cohort average reaches +49.6 mg/dL.
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Yes — across 4,216 meals where members ate potato chips alone, the average glucose peak was +43.3 mg/dL, with 68.7% of responses crossing the +30 mg/dL threshold. In our single-item cohort of 4,216 chip logs, the median peak was +41.0 mg/dL and 59.9% of responses landed in the high-spike tier (above +35 mg/dL). The dominant lever is total carb load: high-carb meals (≥60g) pushed peaks 23.9% higher than lighter builds (p<0.001, n=5,024 vs. n=10,063). Brand form moves the needle only modestly — kettle chips averaged −1.5 mg/dL vs. regular in matched logs (n=539), while baked chips ran +2.3 mg/dL higher, not lower. The meal context is the bigger story: chips alongside a sandwich averaged +50.1 mg/dL (n=2,161), +6.3 mg/dL above the alone baseline. These are observational, not causal findings.
Some members spike +40.7 mg/dL. Others spike +53.9. The only way to know how you'll spike is to measure with a Signos CGM.
Potato chips are dense starch fried in oil — and that combination produces a sustained glucose rise rather than the fast spike-and-drop typical of pure starch foods. Across 4,216 single-item logs, the average peak was +43.3 mg/dL, with 59.9% of responses classified as high. Total carb load is the dominant lever: high-carb meals (≥60g) produced peaks 23.9% higher than lighter builds (p<0.001, n=5,024). The fat matrix in chips appears to delay rather than blunt absorption — high-fat pairings (≥15g) in 13,219 matched logs ran 15.5% higher than the low-fat baseline (p<0.001), the opposite of what fat does alongside a plain bagel or banana. Meal timing also registers: night snack logs averaged +49.6 mg/dL vs. +41.1 mg/dL for afternoon snacks — an 8.5 mg/dL spread likely reflecting lower insulin sensitivity in the evening hours. These effects are observational, not yet causal.
This page draws on Signos production CGM data logged between March 2025 and April 2026, covering 19,285 meals containing potato chips across 7,155 unique members (broader cohort). The single-item sub-cohort — meals where potato chips were logged without other foods — comprises 4,216 meals from 2,536 unique members and is the primary source for headline stats (mean peak +43.3 mg/dL, median +41.0 mg/dL, pct above 30: 68.7%). The modifier-table cohort (n=19,285, mean +44.4 mg/dL) is used for the slot-level pairing comparisons in the recipe builder. Statistical comparisons use Welch's t-test on matched pairs; all dominant modifier effects (high_carb, high_sugar, high_fat, fasted state) carry p<0.001. We filter to meals with a measured glucose rise between 0 and 100 mg/dL (ppgr_case='regular') to exclude sensor artifacts. The single-item distribution is right-skewed; the reported mean (+43.3 mg/dL) sits above the median (+41.0 mg/dL). Brand sub-cohorts (kettle, baked, Lay's) are identified by log text matching; confidence tiers reflect sub-cohort size: high ≥500, medium ≥100, low <100.