How a pinch of vinegar can help you lose weight [Beuzz]

When I’m enjoying a sumptuous dinner at a restaurant and suddenly crave a slice of sticky caramel pudding, I know exactly what to do: I ask the waiter if he has vinegar in the kitchen.

I don’t mind if it’s wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar, rice vinegar, or rich brown Sarson that you might sprinkle on your fries, but I’ll surreptitiously decant a spoonful into a glass of water and the drop it while I wait for my dessert to arrive.

Likewise, if I’m going out for the day and think my only lunch options will be bread, I can slip a glass of diluted vinegar solution before I leave the house in the morning or decant some vinegar into the bottle of water. 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 will be released into the bloodstream more slowly.

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

These two factors – glucose released into the body more slowly and our muscles absorbing it faster – mean that after ingesting vinegar you should end up with less glucose freely circulating in your blood and a much higher spike in glucose. little.

As a biochemist, I’m fascinated by the way our blood sugar levels rise and fall, how dramatically those peaks and troughs impact our health, and finding — and testing — different ways to flatten those curves.

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

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

What’s wrong with glucose spikes?

When we eat sugary or starchy foods, they end up as glucose in the blood, where it is transported throughout the body to cells and then used as energy. Eat too much too quickly and your blood sugar will rise. It affects most of us, not just diabetics, and has consequences that can harm both our physical and mental health.

But studies have shown that a tablespoon of vinegar before a meal can reduce that meal’s spike in glucose by up to 30%, reducing inflammation, slowing aging, increasing energy, balancing hormones and helping the brain. With this, food cravings are curbed, hunger is tamed and more fat is burned.

The body’s natural response to a spike in glucose is to release the hormone insulin, which pulls this 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 sugar levels are relatively stable.

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

But the vinegar also appears to impact insulin, reducing levels in the blood. The same studies show that just one tablespoon of vinegar can reduce blood insulin levels by 20% after a meal.

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

Vinegar has also been shown to have a remarkable effect on our DNA (the molecules inside cells that contain all important genetic information), telling it to reprogram itself slightly so cells burn more fat.

Simply consuming a tablespoon or two of vinegar before a meal for three months helps reduce the amount of harmful “visceral” fat that builds up around your organs, reducing 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 to 4 pounds over three months.

In another study conducted by researchers in Brazil on two groups following a strict diet, the group drinking vinegar every day lost twice as much weight as those who did not (11 lbs versus 5 lbs).

All vinegars work: white wine, red wine, apple cider, malt, balsamic, sherry, rice. Just avoid syrupy, aged balsamic vinegars, which can be too high in sugar, and cleaning vinegar — you should never drink these.

How to take your vinegar

The easiest way to take advantage of the blood sugar leveling qualities of vinegar is to drink one tablespoon each day in a tall glass (300ml) of still or sparkling water. Some people find that mixing vinegar in hot water is more soothing.

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

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

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

You have a little leeway, so if, say, you’re given an unexpected slice of office cake, target your vinegar hack up to 20 minutes before you eat it, while you eat, or up to 20 minutes after you’ve eaten the last crumb. The spoonful of vinegar trick is brilliant and might allow you to eat your cake without the risk of a glucose spike or roller coaster.

Be warned, however, that while vinegar curbs blood sugar spikes, it doesn’t erase them. So don’t try to use it as an excuse to eat more sugar.

Glucose Goddess Tip: Use an ice cube tray to freeze a tablespoon of vinegar in each cube. It makes your measured dose ready to be easily inserted 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, out from New River Books April 25 at £22. © Jessie Inchauspe 2023.

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

Surprisingly tasty vinegar cocktails

Ginger Giant

For 1

3 cm peeled and finely grated fresh ginger

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

Ice cubes

carbonated water

Slice of lime to garnish

Combine ginger and vinegar in a glass and fill to the top with sparkling water and ice. Garnish with the slice of lime.

Mojito slush

For 1

Mint leaves (picked from 2 sprigs)

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

Ice

carbonated water

Blend the leaves, vinegar and ice in a blender until it has the consistency of a slushie. Transfer the mixture to a cocktail glass, top up with sparkling water and serve. Garnish with additional mint leaves.

Spritzer without orange juice

For 1

2.5 cm piece of chopped ginger

2 sprigs of mint

1 sprig of rosemary

Zest of 1 small orange, plus a slice to garnish

¼ teaspoon ground turmeric

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

Ice cubes

carbonated water

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