Vinegar and Diabetes: 3 Mistakes People with Diabetes Make

Vinegar is something that many people with diabetes know has the potential to help lower post-meal blood sugar spikes. There are some studies to support that. But what is important for diabetics is - how to translate this information into practical action, where this should sit in one's overall blood sugar control efforts and overall diabetes management plan.

From my experience coaching patients with diabetes, there are three common mistakes many diabetics make with regards to the use and the role of vinegar in diabetes management based on the information that vinegar has some potential to reduce post meal blood sugar spikes to some degree.

Watch the video below where I go through all three mistakes, or read on.

Mistake 1: Reaching for Vinegar Pills Instead of Adding Vinegar to Food

When people learn that vinegar may help lower blood sugar spikes, the first instinct for many is to look for vinegar in supplement form. A pill. A capsule. Something convenient to take in the morning alongside their other tablets.

I want to challenge that instinct directly.

This is not just a practical objection about supplement quality or label accuracy, though those concerns are real. My deeper objection is about the mindset behind it.

We are so quick to take any food that shows potential health benefits and turn it into a pill. Turmeric becomes a curcumin capsule. Broccoli becomes a supplement. Garlic becomes a tablet. And now vinegar becomes a pill. We do this because we are always looking for shortcuts. We want the benefit without changing the habit.

But Food as Medicine is not about replacing the drugs in pills with food in pills. Food as Medicine is about replacing unhealthy food-related habits with healthier ones. It is about changing what we eat, when we eat, and how we eat. Not about adding another pill to the morning routine.

If vinegar has the potential to help with blood sugar, then explore ways to include vinegar in your food. At home, experiment with recipes. Add it to salad dressings, marinades, dipping sauces. When eating out, ask for vinegar to accompany high carbohydrate meals where appropriate. The Japanese do this with sushi rice. Mediterranean cuisines serve balsamic vinegar with the bread basket. Here in Singapore, we add black vinegar to Bak Chor Mee.

These are practical, culturally familiar, enjoyable ways to use vinegar as food. That is what Food as Medicine should look like. Not another pill.

Mistake 2: Adding Vinegar Without Addressing What Is Actually Causing the Blood Sugar Spikes

The second mistake is one I see constantly in my clinic and in my workshops.

A person with diabetes hears that vinegar may help lower blood sugar. So they start adding vinegar to their meals. And they feel they have done something meaningful for their diabetes.

But they have not changed the things that are causing the blood sugar spikes in the first place. The excessive sugar intake. The excessive refined and processed carbohydrates at most meals. These remain untouched.

I often ask my patients: "Instead of asking what you can add to help lower blood sugar, why not start by looking at what you are already eating that is causing the problem?"

That is the more important question. Not what to add. But what to change.

Vinegar may blunt the edges of a blood sugar spike. But it does not address the root cause. If your meals are consistently high in refined carbohydrates and sugar, adding vinegar is at best a minor softening of a major problem. It is a good-to-have. A nice-to-have. It is not a must-do.

The must-do is holistically reviewing and improving all aspects of your diet that are driving unhealthy blood sugar spikes. Deal with the root first. Then, if adding vinegar to your food is practical and enjoyable, by all means do so.

I often challenge my patients with this question, "Is your diabetes, your poor blood sugar caused by the lack of vinegar in your diet in the past 10 years?". Most would be a bit stunned, or perplexed by my 'strange' question, but quite a few would immediately catch on to what I was trying to highlight - which is that we should first fully tackle the clear causes of the problem first, which in almost all cases would be unhealthy lifestyle and eating habits, not the lack of vinegar in diet. 

Mistake 3: Forgetting That Good Blood Sugar Control Is Not the Only Goal

The third mistake is the most important one, and also the most commonly overlooked.

People with diabetes focus intensely on blood sugar numbers. That is understandable. Blood sugar is the most visible and measurable marker of diabetes control. But managing diabetes well is not just about better blood sugar numbers.

The real goal is preventing the devastating long-term complications of diabetes. Stroke. Blindness. Kidney failure. Heart attack. These are the outcomes that determine the quality and length of a person's life with diabetes. And achieving them requires more than just better blood sugar control through one specific dietary change, however helpful that might be in lowering blood sugar.

A holistic approach to diabetes management means looking at every aspect of diet and lifestyle that impacts long-term outcomes. Not just blood sugar. Unhealthy fat intake. Vegetable intake. Physical activity. Stress. Sleep. All of it matters.

So when someone with diabetes discovers that vinegar may help lower blood sugar, and that becomes their focus, they are at risk of missing the bigger picture entirely. Do not let the useful information about vinegar distract you from the comprehensive lifestyle and dietary changes that managing diabetes well actually requires.

Don't win the daily blood sugar battles and lost the eventual war against diabetes progression and complications.

The Bottom Line on Vinegar and Diabetes

Vinegar does have some potential to help blunt post-meal blood sugar spikes. That is supported to some degree in some studies. But the three mistakes above show how easily information such as this are translated into action in a way that may be sub-optimal at best, or even unhelpful.

I do not recommend responding to this information about the relationship about vinegar and blood sugar by adding another pill (vinegar supplement pill) into one's diabetes management regime. Adding vinegar supplements can never substitute for the critical and foundational dietary changes your diabetes management actually depends on. And do not let blood sugar control alone define your goals. Your diabetes management needs to be holistic. Comprehensive. Sustained. And optimising your lifestyle and eating habits is key to that.

Your habits can be powerful medicine. Use them. 

Learning About Reversing Type 2 Diabetes

If you have diabetes and are not as equipped with the essential foundational knowledge about reversing Type 2 diabetes as you should be, I have a structured online learning programme that you might find very useful. You can find out more through the link below.

Find out more about the Reversing Type 2 Diabetes: Essential Basics - Structured Online Learning Programme Here

About Dr Chan Tat Hon

Dr Chan graduated from the National University of Singapore medical school in 1992. For the last ten years, his work has focused on lifestyle medicine. He works with healthcare and corporate organisations to design and deliver lifestyle behaviour change programmes, train health coaches and build communities engaged in cultivating healthy behaviours to combat diseases.

He also provides training and coaching to individuals with diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, cardiovascular diseases and other lifestyle-related chronic diseases through 1-1 personalised coaching, live webinars, and online courses.

• 1-1 Personalised Coaching with Dr Chan
• Online Courses and Programmes by Dr Chan
• Reversing Type 2 Diabetes: Essential Basics Online Programme

About This Video

In this episode of The Habits Pharmacy Podcast, I walk through the three most common mistakes people with diabetes make when they come across information about vinegar's potential to lower blood sugar. The mistakes cover mindset, dietary priorities, and the bigger picture of holistic diabetes management. This is a companion to my shorter video on the science of vinegar and blood sugar, which you can find here: Does Vinegar Help Lower Blood Sugar?

Full Video Transcript

The following is the full transcript of the video above.

Vinegar has shown to have the potential to be helpful in lowering post-meal blood sugar spikes, but often this helpful information is used inappropriately, including, and especially by people with diabetes. So in this episode of The Habits Doctor's Pharmacy Podcast, I want to talk about the three common mistakes that people with diabetes make when it comes to using this helpful information about vinegar's potential blood sugar lowering properties.

Welcome to another episode of The Habits Doctor's Pharmacy Podcast. I'm Dr. Chan, your host. I'm a medical doctor from Singapore. My work, and my passion is in awakening and activating people to unlock the tremendous power of our lifestyle habits in preventing and combating diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and other lifestyle related chronic diseases. And today I want to talk about the three mistakes that people with diabetes make when making use of the information that vinegar has potential blood sugar lowering properties.

This is a follow-up to a video that I made for my main channel, where I talked about some of the scientific studies regarding this topic about vinegar's blood sugar lowering properties. So if you're interested to watch this video, do go to my main channel, I shall leave the link to this video in the show notes below.

So let's go to today's topic. The three mistakes that people with diabetes make with regards to vinegar and blood sugar.

Mistake number one I want to talk about is this, that many people tend to use this information to take vinegar in the form of pills, instead of trying to look at ways to add vinegar into their foods. Why do I call this a mistake? Why do I not recommend people take vinegar in the form of pills?

Without going into the challenges of supplements in general, such as label accuracy, product purity, efficacy, etc, generally, I do not recommend taking supplements in the form of pills. My objection, why I discourage, why I would not recommend taking vinegar or any other supplements in the form of pills for that matter. Why I do not recommend that is because I want to move people away from this very unhealthy mindset, this unhealthy behavior of always looking for convenient answers in the form of pills. We're always looking for answers in the form of magic pills. We are always turning good information about food and its potential to help us combat diseases. Turn that useful information into something unhealthy.

For example, when we know about the anti-inflammatory properties of curcumin and turmeric, instead of adding turmeric in our foods and our diet, we are always looking to put the turmeric or curcumin into a pill. Or the potential anti-cancer properties of broccoli. And we will try to put broccoli, the essence of broccoli into a pill, or garlic, or beetroot. We are so quick to put foods in a pill. Because we are always looking for convenience. We're always looking for shortcuts. We're quite willing to, in general, use money in exchange for magic pills to solve problems, to solve our health problems instead of putting in the time and making the effort to change habits to undo the problems that our unhealthy lifestyle are doing to our health.

This is a very wrong understanding of, a very wrong use of this beautiful concept of Food as Medicine. Food as Medicine should not be about replacing the drugs in pills with food in pills. Food as Medicine should be about replacing unhealthy food related habits with healthier ones. Food as Medicine should be about changing, replacing unhealthy food related habits that were causing health problems in the first place. The very habits with regards to food, every aspect of our habits with regards to food. The when, the what and how we eat. Food as Medicine is, should be about tackling them, changing them and improving them. So, Food as Medicine is never about putting food in pills to replace drugs in pills.

From my clinical experience, coaching and helping my patients to change their lifestyle, to change their diet, to combat, to control the many conditions they have, including diabetes. I come across many patients when they know, when they find out from friends or when they read on the internet or watch TV programs about the potential of various foods, various food substances in helping their medical conditions, instead of exploring to add those foods into their diet. They were going to the pharmacies supplements section to look for those foods and those food compounds in the form of pills.

So can I challenge you? Can I encourage you? Or at least can I remind you, that in this instance, even as you know about vinegar's potential to help lower blood sugar, don't be so quick to look for supplementing with vinegar in a pill. Instead, you should be looking for ways to incorporate vinegar into your diet. Whether it's at home, look at recipes, look at ways to include vinegar into various recipes, even in recipes, traditional recipes that do not have vinegar. Why not experiment, explore and try? Or when you are eating out, wherever possible, wherever appropriate, try to ask for vinegar to go along with your meals, especially when you're eating obviously high glycemic index, high carb, very starchy meals, whereby vinegar may help in lowering the post-meal blood sugar spike.

Let's not use this knowledge of vinegar's potential to help lower blood sugar into adding into the number of pills that you pop in the morning, supplementing with vinegar in a pill. May I put it to you that that's not a helpful mindset. That is in fact, a very unhealthy mindset. We should not be looking for shortcuts, convenience, looking for magic pills, magic solutions. It is possible, with some time and some effort to change our habits. And whenever we come across useful information such as vinegar's potential to lower blood sugar. Let's just look at ways to incorporate more frequent, more regular use where appropriate of course, of this food. And in this instance, vinegar in our diet. Let's not turn something so beautiful, so wonderful. This concept of Food as Medicine into something unhealthy, popping pills with food.

The second mistake that I find people with diabetes often make when they come to know of vinegar's potential to lower blood sugar spikes is that they are not changing aspects of their eating habits that are significantly causing the post-meal blood sugar spike. What do I mean by that? People with diabetes are always looking for food that will help lower blood sugar, whether it's vinegar or bitter gourd. And when they find them, when they come to know of them, whether through the internet, whether it's through friends, they'll say, let's add them, let's add them to our diets instead of identifying aspects of the diets, of their eating habits, that are causing unhealthy blood sugar spikes in the first place. For example, excessive sugar intake, excessive processed, refined carbohydrates.

So whilst this information of vinegar potentially being helpful in lowering blood sugar can be used to help us blunt the post-meal blood sugar spike. We still need to deal with all aspects of our dietary habits, the underlying causes of unhealthy blood sugar spikes in the first place. Before we look at what to add to our diet, whether it's vinegar, bitter gourd or other food compounds that are known to have blood sugar lowering properties. Let's look at what we're eating, how we're eating that are causing unhealthy blood sugar spikes in the first place. Then work at changing them, work at reducing them, work at improving them.

So that's the second mistake that people with diabetes make. I often come across patients or people will come to my workshops and training programs. They will ask me, "Doctor, what can I eat that will help lower my blood sugar?" And I'll often challenge them with my reply, by saying, "Instead of asking for what foods to add to your diet that may be helpful in lowering blood sugar, why don't you start with looking at your existing diet. Look at areas that are unhelpful in post-meal blood sugar spikes, and then, change them, reduce them, improve them?"

What I am saying is this, although vinegar does have some blood sugar lowering properties, even before we jump into looking at how to add vinegar into our diet. Let's start with looking at all aspects of our diet that we can change and improve that will help us reduce the unhealthy blood sugar spikes in the first place. Because in the whole scheme of things, even though vinegar reduces blood sugar, when it comes to what we need to do to our diet, when it comes to what a person with diabetes must do to their diet, which is to minimize unhealthy blood sugar spikes after meals, adding vinegar to the diet is at best a good to do, a nice to do. Definitely not a must-do. In fact, for people with diabetes, adding vinegar into the diet should not be a distraction. So for example, if a person with diabetes, after reviewing his or her diet, find that he or she is taking too much sugar or processed, refined carbohydrates in most meals. Then focus on reducing them before looking for ways to add vinegar to their diet. Don't be distracted, focus on the must-do, which is to holistically improve your diet to minimize blood sugar spikes in the first place.

Now I come to the third and last mistake that people with diabetes make when they come to know of vinegar's potential to help them lower blood sugar. And that is, they neglect the need for holistic dietary changes that's necessary, not just for better blood sugar control, but for optimal overall diabetes management. Achieving good blood sugar control is not the only thing, although it is the most obvious necessary thing to do for everybody with diabetes.

The key, the goal of optimal holistic management of diabetes must be in preventing, delaying, retarding, reducing the many devastating complications of diabetes, such as stroke, blindness, kidney failure, heart attack. So achieving better blood sugar control through improving and changing one's dietary habits is the first and obvious and necessary thing to do. It is not the only, it must be the first of many things that a person does to his or her diet to help them achieve the best possible outcome even though they have diabetes. That is, to be a diabetes overcomer, that is to prevent, that is to reduce the risk of all the many complications of diabetes.

Therefore, it is important for people with diabetes to identify aspects of their diet, beyond their impact on their blood sugar. But all aspects of their diets which will also impact the long-term complications of diabetes. Once you identify them, there are areas that need to be changed or improved, then change them, improve them. Whether it's about increasing vegetable intake, or reducing unhealthy fats intake. People with diabetes must go beyond just controlling their blood sugar through dietary change.

So these are the three mistakes that I often find people with diabetes make when it comes to using this helpful information of vinegar and blood sugar, the potential of vinegar in helping to lower post-meal blood sugar spikes. That many would turn to taking vinegar in the form of pills, instead of putting vinegar into the foods, into their diets. And not changing enough, not improving enough all aspects of their eating habits that were causing sugar spikes in the first place. Adding vinegar into one's foods to help achieve better blood sugar is at best, a good to have, a nice to have, not a must-have. And thirdly, even though the information of vinegar's potential blood sugar lowering properties is helpful. Never because of that, neglect the need for holistic changes to your diet, your dietary habits that are necessary for optimal diabetes management.

I hope you've enjoyed this episode of The Habits Doctor's Pharmacy Podcast. I'm Dr. Chan your host. Let Habits be Thy Medicine.

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