The 10 Best Foods for Blood Sugar, Ranked by the Evidence

A lot of foods are marketed as “great for balancing blood sugar.” But the thing is, there’s a lot of science around blood sugar and the foods that help manage it. So we wanted to cut through the marketing-speak and give you the foods that were actually backed by science to help keep blood sugar in balance. And the list of foods below is ranked based on how strong the proof is behind the claims. (Meaning, number 1 on this list has the most proof.) 

And if you find yourself in the grocery store and can’t remember what was on this list (although we do recommend saving this one), it all really comes down to one simple formula. A combination of fiber, protein and fat slow down your digestion. And a slower digestion means a gentler rise in blood sugar, as opposed to the classic spike.

The through-line will not surprise anyone who reads this site: fiber, protein, and fat slow digestion, and slower digestion means a flatter curve after meals. Grace Derocha, a registered dietitian and national spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, compresses the whole subject into one sentence: “If you eat something that’s only carbs and no protein, fat or fiber, your blood sugar will go high fast and then drop low, fast,” she told TODAY.

Here are the ten foods that help manage your blood sugar spikes with the evidence behind them.

10. Fatty Fish

Fatty fish like salmon and sardines are a unique addition to this list (and why they are 10th.) They don’t affect your blood sugar. But! They are on this list because they are not only a zero carb protein, but they are high in omega-3s. And omega-3s have huge benefits that accrue in your cardiovascular system, which is exactly what elevated blood sugar threatens. Two servings of these a week are great for your heart and will increase the benefits of everything else on this list.

9. Leafy Greens

This is where the science shifts a little bit. But it is still worth noting. The evidence here is basically observational. But the observation is that people who eat more leafy greens tend to get less type 2 diabetes. The other positive is that leafy greens have very little carbohydrate, so they can’t spike you. The American Diabetes Association suggests filling your plate with non-starchy vegetables, which helps to counteract how much carbs you can put on your plate.

8. Chia and Flax Seeds

Chia and flax seeds basically do the same thing as oats do. They form a viscous fluid that physically slows down your gut’s ability to absorb sugar. It’s like painting your gut. “That gel slows gastric emptying and glucose absorption, which helps blunt post-meal blood sugar spikes and promotes satiety,” registered dietitian Payton Brewer told EatingWell. One important thing to note: recent data has shown that chia does not move fasting glucose or HbA1c on its own. Think of these as (very helpful!) supporting players, but not their own medicine.

7. Avocado

Avocados are so good for you. They got a bad rap in the 80’s when everything went “fat free” And all fats were demonized. But the truth is, some fats are very good for you. And avocadoes have almost no carbs, tons of fiber and a fat that slows the spike.

“When you eat a food that has fiber and healthy fats together, it stabilizes blood sugar,” Julie Kramer, a registered dietitian at Northwell Health, explains. Drop half of an avocado on your eggs on whole grain toast and you just turned a potentially spike meal into a slow one. 

6. Greek Yogurt

The bad news about Greek yogurt is that you have to buy plain. The flavored greek yogurts (and any yogurts) are a trap to make you think something is healthy, but they are loaded with sugar. But the best part is you can add in some berries to the plain yogurt which arguably tastes even better than any flavored version. It works because it combines protein and fats to help slow the spike.

“There’s a lot of healthy protein and fat in yogurt. So that’s a good option,” Kumar told TODAY, adding that berries stirred in bring “a healthy amount of sugar that doesn’t cause a quick spike.” The entire trap of the yogurt aisle is the flavored versions, which we covered in our piece on health foods with more sugar than a candy bar.

5. Vinegar

You might be surprised, but the research around how vinegar can help with blood sugar has nothing to do with a “shot of apple cider vinegar each day” stuff you see on Instagram. This is more about incorporating vinegar into your salad dressings and ingesting it before the carbs. It’s more a stack than a standalone item. So no need to do the vinegar shots anymore.

Looking for more proof? A 2017 meta-analysis in Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice found vinegar taken with meals significantly reduced post-meal glucose and insulin. 

4. Nuts

A meta-analysis of 49 trials found that a couple of ounces of tree nuts daily modestly improved fasting glucose in people with type 2 diabetes. The trick here is to eat the nuts with a bit of carbs. Think peanut butter with an apple (which also happens to be delicious.) “You’re balancing it with fat and protein from the peanut butter, which slows the spike in (blood) sugar,” Dr. Rekha Kumar, an endocrinologist at Weill Cornell Medicine, told TODAY, describing the apple-plus-peanut-butter snack.

Julia Zumpano, a registered dietitian at the Cleveland Clinic, brings up a great point about how nutrient dense nuts are and how that can start to change the way bad snackers can snack: “Regular nut intake gives you such satiety, fullness and nutrient density that you’re not looking for other snacks to fill up on, therefore leads to better management of your blood sugars and cholesterol,” she says.

3. Oats

Oats are their own entry even though they are usually also a whole grain. Oats have something called beta-glucan, which is a serious fiber that turns into a gel in your gut. And that gel physically slows down the sugars from getting through, which slows the blood sugar spike.” The fiber in oats—especially beta-glucan—can also improve insulin sensitivity and help keep blood sugar more stable over time,” registered dietitian Jessica Jones, CEO of Diabetes Digital, told Woman’s World.

This is where you have to look at what you’re buying. No more instant oats. “Steel-cut oats have the lowest glycemic impact,” registered dietitian Dawn Menning notes in the same piece. Instant packets, especially flavored ones, give some of the advantage back. These may take a little longer to cook, but they are worth it.

2. Whole Grains (in Place of Refined Ones)

This is a swap. If you are eating a lot of highly refined grains, then swapping in whole grains is a double win. You are removing things that spike your blood sugar, while adding in things that help lower the spike. That’s kind of a two for one. 

“Refined grains have much of the ‘goodness’ stripped away from them, and what’s left over offers little benefit and can send blood sugars soaring,” Joanne Lewis, a registered dietitian and certified diabetes educator with Diabetes Canada, puts it.

And the research backs up the swap. “Those who consumed whole grains, rather than the refined grains, had better blood sugar control, which was measured by insulin sensitivity and secretion following meals,” notes Kelly LeBlanc, nutrition director at the nonprofit Oldways. Same calories, same carbs, different outcome.

1. Beans and Lentils

Beans and lentils are the foods on this list with the strongest evidence to help blood sugar spikes. In a randomized trial, people with type 2 diabetes were given a cup of legumes a day for three months. And they lowered their blood sugar number by half a point. That was without any other changes. So the results were real.

Legumes also produce the strange and useful “second-meal effect”: beans at lunch blunt the glucose response to dinner.

The reason they work is because they hit the trifecta. According to Derocha’s description of hummus, it gives you “fiber, protein, some heart-healthy fat and some carbs,” all at once. That’s what you’re looking for. Incorporating hummus into your daily routine is one of the easiest ways to work in beans and legumes. 

About Cinnamon

Any other “blood sugar” article you read on the Internet will include cinnamon. We didn’t include it because it doesn’t seem to have enough supporting evidence…yet. Adding a little here and there is not a bad idea. We just can’t say how much of an effect it will have.

A Cochrane review found insufficient evidence to support it for diabetes, and the American Diabetes Association does not recommend it for glucose control. Some researchers see a small effect. “Yes, it does work,” research nutritionist Paul Davis of UC Davis told NPR of his meta-analysis, “a modest effect of about 3 to 5 percent.” Others in the same report were cooler: “The evidence is still inconclusive,” said Emmy Suhl of the Joslin Diabetes Center, though cinnamon “is inexpensive” and “it tastes good.” Sprinkle it because you like it. One thing to note, cinnamon has something called coumarin which can be hard on the liver in large amounts. So don’t do the spoonful-each-day things you see on social media. 

The next tier, where the evidence thins out

Those 10 made the list because the research supporting them is solid. The following 3 just didn’t make the cut, and it is worth saying why rather than quietly leaving them off. One has a real effect, but the dose isn’t clear. Another has a good study, with a caveat. And the third has two studies showing benefit and one not.
That doesn’t mean we should ignore them. It means that we couldn’t in good conscience rank them against the ten.

Barley

Barley has the same soluble fiber that led to oats’ third-place finish, and the EU permits a health claim for it, with the caveat that a product must contain at least 4 grams of beta-glucans from oats or barley per 30 grams of available carbohydrates.
But it’s below that line where things get interesting. EFSA recently looked at a submission for a health claim at 2 grams based on 21 human intervention trials and 4 systematic reviews and found that they had not shown consistent effects at that level of intake. There was another meta-analysis of 17 studies that showed that barley does reduce post-meal glucose levels, but that meta-analysis found no dose-response relationship and reported a lot of unexplained variation between studies.
Food Standards Australia New Zealand made the sharpest point: none of the trials it reviewed used pure barley beta-glucan, so a barley-specific conclusion was not available to draw. Eat the barley. We just can’t rank it against foods with cleaner data.

Cooled rice and potatoes

This one is genuinely interesting, and it comes with a warning we are not going to bury.
When you cook starches and chill them, some of the starch takes on a different form known as resistant starch, which isn’t broken down quite the same way in the small intestine. One crossover study published in 2022 in Nutrition & Diabetes had 32 adults with type 1 diabetes eat fresh rice or rice that had been refrigerated at 4 °C for 24 hours and then reheated. The refrigerated rice was associated with a lower peak in blood glucose, as well as a lower overall increase and area under the glucose curve during the three hours afterward.
Now here’s the catch. A subsequent review of the study found that, in addition to reducing post-prandial glucose, cooling food was associated with an increase in the incidence of hypoglycemia if insulin doses weren’t adjusted accordingly. If you dose based on a carb count, then a plate that acts differently to what the count suggests isn’t a win. This is something for your medical team to discuss with you, not a cooking hack.
That same review also says it is not established whether the trick does anything useful for pasta.

Olive oil

Olive oil is the clearest example on this page of why ranking by evidence is harder than it looks.
One crossover study in 25 healthy adults showed that adding 10 g extra-virgin olive oil to a Mediterranean-style meal led to lower two-hour glucose compared to the meal without olive oil, as well as compared to the same meal with corn oil. Another randomized crossover study in 13 people with type 1 diabetes showed that olive oil with a high-glycemic meal resulted in a lower glucose response compared with butter or a low-fat version.
But then a small crossover study in people with type 2 diabetes found the opposite result that the glucose spike was bigger with the olive oil, and the authors said it seemed that adding olive oil to a meal did not further affect blood sugar. And they put forth a possible explanation involving free fatty acids, but labeled it as a hypothesis.
Three small trials, three distinct groups, two ways. There are many reasons to have olive oil in your pantry. We cannot yet guarantee a consistent impact on blood sugar levels.

Putting the List to Work

You don’t need to make all these changes at once. And to keep your blood sugar from spiking, you need to have a shift in the lifestyle and food choices you make. So just remember the formula: anchor your meals with protein and fiber. Let the carbs be the smallest percentage (but if they are stacked with protein, fiber and healthy fats, it won’t have as much impact. The easiest place to start is the first meal of the day, and we broke that down in 7 breakfasts that keep your blood sugar steady all morning. For the bigger picture on metabolism, sleep, and why progress stalls, our research cheat sheet covers what the studies actually say.

Kaelyn Johnson, MPH, R.D.

Kaelyn Johnson is a Registered Dietitian from Southern California who has worked as a clinical dietitian and is now a freelance writer.