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- 💡Reach for Vinegar Before You Eat, Here's Why👇🏽
Recently, I met with a fellow diabetic who shared an intriguing hack for blood sugar management: consuming vinegar before meals. Intrigued by this idea, I decided to delve into the science behind it to understand how it works and whether it’s truly effective ✅👇🏽
Why Vinegar? 🥄
Vinegar, when consumed before a sugary or carbohydrate-rich meal, can slow down the meal's impact on blood sugar levels (Figure 1).
Just one teaspoon a day can significantly decrease glucose levels. A drink made with one tablespoon of vinegar in a tall glass of water consumed a few minutes before eating something sweet, can flatten the ensuing glucose (and insulin) spike.
Study have shown that in participants who consumed vinegar before eating a meal rich in carbohydrates, the glucose spike from the meal was reduced by 20%!
Figure 1: Compares the effects of vinegar (1.0 g), sodium acetate, and placebo in healthy adults. Blood glucose levels peak at 60 minutes, with vinegar showing a significant reduction in blood glucose levels compared to sodium acetate and placebo. Sodium acetate does not show a significant difference from the placebo, suggesting the specific antiglycemic property is due to vinegar itself (Johnston et al., 2010).