This Refreshing, Easy-To-Make Tonic Can Balance Your Blood Sugar After A Meal

For today's tip, here's a recipe for a refreshing vinegar tonic from health and science journalist and New York Times bestselling author Max Lugavere. As he shares on the mindbodygreen podcast, he sips on this easy-to-make spritzer after meals to stabilize his glucose response—find all of the details and benefits here.

In other words, consuming vinegar after a meal can slow down the absorption of that meal's sugars into the bloodstream, thus preventing a big glucose spike and subsequent crash. One study even showed that daily vinegar intake (about 2 to 6 tablespoons per day) improved the glycemic response to carbohydrate-rich meals1; another found that consuming apple cider vinegar (ACV) reduced post-meal blood sugar levels by about half in healthy participants. In addition to these blood-sugar-balancing benefits, vinegar—and especially ACV—is often lauded for easing constipation and reducing bloating.

Below, you'll find Lugavere's recipe (also featured in his new book, Genius Kitchen), which includes ACV and ginger, another digestion aid. Full disclosure: "It's not going to affect your fasting blood sugar—which is what gets measured when you go and get a checkup—but if [you're someone who wears] a continuous glucose monitor, you'll see that if you consume vinegar with a high starch meal, you'll have a lower area under the curve for glucose." Not bad for a simple spritzer recipe.

Consider trying out this refreshing tonic after a meal to help balance your blood sugar. And if you're curious about Lugavere's other favorite foods, check out what he eats in a day.