How a dash of vinegar can help you lose weight – and live longer 

When I’m enjoying a lavish restaurant dinner and suddenly have a craving for a slice of sticky toffee pudding, I know just what to do: I’ll ask the waiter if they have vinegar in the kitchen.

I don’t care if it’s wine vinegar, balsamic, rice vinegar or the rich brown Sarson’s you might be drizzling on your fries, but I’ll sneak a spoonful into a glass of water and knock it back while I wait for my dessert to arrive. come.

Likewise, if I’m away for the day and I suspect my only lunch options will be bread-based, I might slip a glass of diluted vinegar solution before I leave home in the morning or pour a little vinegar into the water bottle. I always carry in my backpack.

But why vinegar? Because it contains acetic acid which slows the rate at which digestive enzymes in your gut break down sugars and starches into glucose.

This means that the glucose molecules from the cake or cookie you just ate are released more slowly into the bloodstream.

Vinegar has a second benefit: once acetic acid enters the bloodstream, it penetrates the muscles, encouraging them to take in and store glucose molecules.

These two factors – glucose is released into the body more slowly and our muscles absorb it more quickly – mean that after taking vinegar you should have less free-flowing glucose in your blood, and a much smaller glucose spike.

As a biochemist, I’m fascinated with the way our blood sugar levels rise and fall, the far-reaching impact that spikes and dips have on our health, and finding — and testing — different ways to flatten those curves.

In this final installment of my Mail exclusive series, I’ll show you how a little vinegar can protect you from the erratic blood sugar swings that can jeopardize your health and longevity.

It can also help you burn more fat, improve focus, mood and energy.

What’s the problem with glucose spikes?

When we eat sugary or starchy foods, they enter the blood as glucose, where it is released by the body into the cells and then used for energy. Eating too much too quickly raises your blood sugar. This affects most of us, not just diabetics, and has consequences that can damage both our physical and mental health.

But studies have shown that a tablespoon of vinegar before a meal can reduce that meal’s glucose spike by as much as 30 percent, reducing inflammation, slowing down aging, boosting energy, balancing hormones and helping the brain. This curbs cravings, tames hunger and burns more fat.

The body’s natural response to a glucose spike is to release the hormone insulin, which takes that glucose from the blood and stores some of it as fat for possible future use. It is a carefully calibrated system that works well when blood glucose levels are relatively stable.

But eating too many highly processed and sugary foods can cause dramatic spikes, triggering too much insulin; this is bad for our cells and eventually leads to alarming drops in glucose levels.

But vinegar also seems to affect insulin, lowering levels in the blood. The same studies show that a single tablespoon of vinegar can lower blood insulin levels by 20 percent after a meal.

This means that there is less chance of excess glucose in the blood being added to your fat stores.

Vinegar has also been shown to have a remarkable effect on our DNA (the molecules in cells that carry all the important genetic information), instructing it to reprogram something so that the cells burn more fat.

Consuming one or two tablespoons of vinegar before a meal for three months will reduce the amount of harmful “visceral” fat that collects around your organs, lowering levels of circulating blood fats that can lead to heart disease.

It also seems to help with general weight loss. In one study, vinegar drinkers lost 2 lb to 4 lb over three months.

In another study by researchers in Brazil of two groups following strict diets, the group that drank vinegar every day lost twice as much weight as those who didn’t (11 lb compared to 5 lb).

Any vinegar will work: white wine, red wine, apple cider, malt, balsamic, sherry, rice. Just avoid viscous, old balsamic vinegar, which can contain too much sugar, and cleaning vinegar – you should never drink that.

How to take your vinegar

The easiest way to benefit from vinegar’s blood sugar lowering properties is to drink one tablespoon each day in a large glass (300 ml) of still or sparkling water. Some people find it more soothing to stir vinegar into hot water.

Many of my readers take theirs as a morning drink, before breakfast, because it’s easier to remember.

But you can also sip it during the day (if you don’t like the taste of vinegar, start with a teaspoon in a glass and build up your taste tolerance) or make one of my tasty vinegar mocktails (see below).

But the most powerful time to drink vinegar is ten minutes before eating something sweet or starchy (such as pasta, bread, potatoes, or rice), which will quickly break down into glucose during the digestive process.

You do have some leeway, so if you get an unexpected piece of office cake, for example, aim your vinegar up to 20 minutes before you eat it, while you’re eating, or up to 20 minutes after you eat it. ate the last crumb. The trick with a spoonful of vinegar is brilliant and should allow you to eat your cake without the risk of a glucose spike or roller coaster cravings.

However, be warned that while vinegar curbs blood sugar spikes, it doesn’t erase them. So don’t try to use it as a justification for eating more sugar.

Glucose Goddess Tip: Use an ice cube tray to freeze a tablespoon of vinegar in each cube. It makes it easy to pop your ready-to-use metered dose into a drink.

• Adapted from The Glucose Goddess Method: Your Four-Week Guide to Cutting Cravings, Getting Your Energy Back, And Feeling Amazing, by Jessie Inchauspe, published by New River Books April 25 for £22. © Jessie Inchauspe 2023.

• You can pre-order a copy of The Glucose Goddess Method for just £11 (RRP £22) at WHSmith.co.uk. Just use promo code 60804556 when you shop online at WHSmith.co.uk. Offer valid until May 1, 2023. Conditions apply.

Surprisingly tasty vinegar cocktails

Ginger giant

Serves 1

3 cm piece of fresh ginger, peeled and finely grated

1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

Ice cubes

Mineral water

Slice of lime to garnish

Mix the ginger and vinegar together in a glass and fill to the brim with club soda and ice. Garnish with the slice of lime.

Mojito slushie

Serves 1

Mint leaves (picked from 2 sprigs)

1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

Ice

Mineral water

Blitz leaves, vinegar and ice in a blender until it has the consistency of a slushie. Pour the mixture into a cocktail glass, top up with soda water and serve. Garnish with additional mint leaves.

Non orange juice spritzer

Serves 1

2.5 cm piece of ginger, finely chopped

2 sprigs of mint

1 sprig of rosemary

Zest of 1 small orange, plus a slice to decorate

¼ tsp ground turmeric

1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

Ice cubes

Mineral water

Put the ginger, mint, rosemary, zest, turmeric and vinegar in a glass and mash with a wooden spoon. Add club soda and strain into a new glass. Serve with ice and a slice of orange.