Do you have questions about nutrition? Send them to us at comer@lavanguardia.es, our nutritionist Aitor Sánchez will answer all your questions.
Is drinking water with vinegar before meals good? (Cris M., reader)
Hi Chris,
We have known for decades that drinking vinegar during meals can be useful to reduce the impact that a meal can have on blood glucose. This is one of the guidelines that we explain in consultation and adapt to different patients who have to control increases in blood sugar, such as diabetes or metabolic syndrome.
The problem that we are seeing lately with this type of guidelines is that they are popularized on social networks without any type of contextualization or appropriate recommendations for use, and without a doubt, the fact of drinking a glass of water with vinegar, like this, “on a stick dry” before meals, we could say that it is a good example that is somewhat out of character.
There are many more priority things to do to improve our diet, and what’s more, it is being sold as a magic trick that is also given much more importance than it deserves. This is what happens to us: we have people drinking water with vinegar before rice or pasta dishes, but not focusing on including legumes or vegetables regularly in their diet, which would help them to a much greater extent.
This type of recommendation could also have been shared in a much more conciliatory way, recommending, for example, having a salad with some vinegar or different types of cold soups to which we include this ingredient.
Of course it is something we can do if we feel like it, but personally I think it makes much more sense to recommend guidelines that are better integrated into our routine, such as eating pickles between meals or as an appetizer. Something much easier to carry out and that does not sound so obsessive with a much more normative diet.
On a nutritional level, how does taking creatine affect you? (Manuel Bejar, reader)
Hello Manuel,
Creatine is one of the most studied supplements with the best proven results. It is undoubtedly one of the best cases that there is scientific evidence that supports taking supplements in a world in which there are often more promises than realities.
We find creatine in different foods of animal origin, but the quantities that we can ingest in supplements are much greater than what we could take through food, so it makes a lot of sense that there are supplements of this substance.
It is used above all in the world of sports nutrition, and among its main functions is to improve our performance and also slightly facilitate an increase in the person’s volume. The way in which creatine works most efficiently is by saturating its deposits, that is, the stores we have of it, so it makes sense to take it with a continuous administration schedule for weeks, and not so much in a continuous way. sporadic.
What is achieved with this is that our body stores this creatine and also increases the amount of intracellular water that accompanies it. This improves performance in some exercises, and can also help us optimize the processes of increasing muscle mass, both by improving performance in exercises and by increasing weight gain generated by taking this supplement.
However, even if it is a supplement that works, it makes sense that it be consumed within a coherent eating and training plan, since if not, we may be wasting our money or taking a supplement that perhaps we do not need or care for. it is needed
