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You may have heard lots of claims about the health benefits of vinegar and apple cider vinegar in particular. There are some claims of vinegar’s health benefits that scientists are still researching. But there are many benefits that we know vinegar has. Vinegar probably isn’t the first food you think of when listing things that could improve your health. But it could help your body to heal in several ways. These include increasing calcium absorption and controlling blood sugar levels. Vinegar can also replace unhealthy fats and sodium in your diet.
Helping You to Absorb Calcium
Vinegars, including apple cider vinegar, which is a favourite for many people, are high in acetic acid. This acid, like many other acids, aids the body in absorbing important minerals and nutrients. This means that consuming vinegar could improve your body’s abilities to absorb essential minerals. Women could benefit from eating or drinking vinegar especially. It’s more difficult for them to get all the calcium they need for strong bones than it is for men. Women are particularly susceptible to osteoporosis, a disease that thins the bones.
Calcium is most often found in dairy products. But people who don’t consume them need to look elsewhere for their calcium supply. Alternative sources are, usually, leafy greens. But these can contain compounds that prevent or slow down the absorption of calcium. Vinegar can help with this problem, by simply adding a vinegar dressing to a leafy salad.
Blood Sugar Control
Vinegar appears to have some benefits in helping you to control your blood sugar levels. In fact, people have even hailed it as helping people with type 2 diabetes manage their disease. Type 2 diabetes makes the body resistant to the hormone insulin. The body cannot process sugar, and it begins to build up in the blood. High blood sugar levels can cause many problems over time. These problems include heart disease, blindness and loss of feeling in extremities. Being able to control their blood sugar levels better can help to prevent these disastrous health problems for people with type 2 diabetes.
Vinegar may be able to stop some digestive enzymes breaking carbohydrates into sugar. This slows down the process of absorbing sugar into the body after a meal. As a result, the body has more time to take sugar from the blood and helps to prevent high blood sugar levels. Scientists need to do more studies on the benefits of vinegar for blood sugar levels. But people with type 2 diabetes might wish to discuss its benefits with their doctor.
Alternative to Fats and Salt
Although some people drink vinegar as a tonic every day to reap its health benefits, it’s most often used in cooking. Vinegar makes an excellent cooking ingredient because it has a huge range of varieties and flavours. From malt vinegar to rice vinegar, it’s used in dishes around the world. Because vinegar can bring such flavour to a dish, you can use it to replace ingredients that are high in sodium or unhealthy fats. For example, you can use malt vinegar to flavour food instead of ketchup. And vinegar-based salad dressings are much healthier than those based on mayonnaise or other creamy ingredients.