I couldn’t imagine a morning without a coffee or two.

But I wondered what kind of effect that has on balancing blood sugar levels.

At first, everything I found was good news, coffee – in moderation – decreases the risk of diabetes. But there’s a big but, as you’ll read.

First the good news.

Coffee (and tea) are pretty high in antioxidants. What’s more, coffee has been proven to reduce insulin resistance, and take the edge of any hunger pangs, as it encourages the release of glucagon, which is a really good thing when it comes to balancing your blood sugar.

But now for the bad news.

Let’s start with the obvious stuff. Too much coffee make you agitated. The knock on effect of this is your cortisol levels go out of whack, pushing your body in to fight or flight mode – which is pretty much like your liver saying, “All hands on deck – you’re going to need some fast, snappy energy”. So it turns up the dial on your blood sugar.

But here’s the really, really bad news that left me scratching me head.

Having a carby snack – like a croissant – with your coffee changes the game completely – it can triple your blood sugar levels whilst halving your insulin levels. And that’s a really dangerous combo, it means all that excess blood glucose is dumped straight in to your fat storage.

So now, I make sure I don’t eat anything during or after my morning coffee for a while, which is no hardship at all. Haven’t got myself on to decaf yet though.

It’s also another simple food combination that can clearly make a big difference to blood sugar levels. I’ve put the others in this PDF.