Is It Healthier to Eat Your Vegetables Before Your Carbs?

Q: I’ve heard that it’s best for my health to eat a salad before dinner. But if I’m eating vegetables regardless, does the order really matter?

It’s a popular internet health hack: Eat foods in the “right” order — vegetables first, proteins and fats second, carbohydrates last — and you’ll significantly reduce your resulting spike in blood sugar, which can therefore reduce cravings, fatigue and health risks like Type 2 diabetes, proponents say.

Past research on the topic, sometimes referred to as nutrient or meal sequencing, has concluded that it can indeed benefit blood sugar, especially for those with Type 2 diabetes or pre-diabetes.

For everyone else, it’s not as cut-and-dried, said Dr. Alpana Shukla, a physician and researcher at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City who has studied food order. Though there are some reasons to consider giving it a try, she said.

What does the research suggest?

Existing studies on the benefits of meal sequencing are small, but the results are consistent, experts say.

In one 2023 review of 11 studies, for instance, researchers concluded that people who saved carbohydrate-rich foods for the end of a meal, after vegetables and proteins, had significantly lower blood sugar levels than when they consumed them first.