Does it matter in what order you eat your food and vegetables during a meal?

What you eat or drink before your meal has measurable effects on your blood sugar. A glass of 100% orange juice before a meal produced a lower blood sugar rise and a lower total energy intake that day than a comparable sugary soft drink. Orange juice therefore acts differently from ordinary sugary drinks, even though they contain similar amounts of sugar.

How you eat also counts. People who ate rice with chopsticks took smaller bites and chewed more. That produced a noticeably lower blood sugar response than eating rice with a spoon (a glycaemic index of 68 versus 81). Eating with the fingers did not, incidentally, offer this advantage. This is a small study, so the finding is preliminary.

Fibre at breakfast is another approach with clearer evidence. Oats high in soluble fibre (beta-glucan) strongly slowed gastric emptying and considerably lowered the blood sugar and insulin response compared with a regular breakfast. However, at the next meal participants ate just as much as usual. A favourable blood sugar response after such a breakfast therefore did not automatically lead to eating less later in the day.

The timing of your meals also plays a role, although this is technically not a 'sequence' of foods. A small study in healthy young men showed that eating late (with an evening meal at 23:00) raised the average 24-hour blood sugar level compared with an early eating schedule, with exactly the same food. Whether this also applies to other groups is uncertain.

The core finding is: the timing of what you eat before your meal (such as orange juice or fibre-rich oats) can lower your blood sugar response. An evening meal late at night has the opposite, unfavourable effect. Most studies are small and conducted in healthy individuals, so firm conclusions cannot yet be drawn.