Korean Food Has So Many Veggies—So Why Can Diabetes Still Happen?
🇰🇷 Think about a typical Korean table.
🥬 Kimchi
🥗 Namul, seasoned vegetables
🫘 Beans
🥢 Tofu
🌿 Seaweed
🥣 Soup
Pretty healthy-looking, right?
That is exactly why this question is so interesting.
“If Koreans eat so many vegetables and plant-based foods, why can Type 2 diabetes still develop—even in people who are not severely overweight?”
The answer is not as simple as:
“Too much sugar.”
And diabetes is definitely not something that happens only to people with obesity.
To understand diabetes in Koreans, we need to look beyond body weight and consider insulin production, rice-centered meals, carbohydrate quality, and each person's actual post-meal glucose response.
🧬 Can You Develop Diabetes Without Being Very Overweight?
Yes.
One important part of Type 2 diabetes is insulin resistance.
When the body becomes less sensitive to insulin, the pancreas has to work harder and produce more insulin to keep blood glucose under control.
But East Asian diabetes has another important part of the story:
How much insulin can the pancreas actually produce when the body needs it?
A 2013 review comparing East Asian populations with populations in Europe and the United States reported that East Asians tend to develop Type 2 diabetes at a lower BMI.
Researchers have also highlighted relatively early pancreatic beta-cell dysfunction and limitations in insulin secretion.
In simple terms, you do not necessarily need to be severely overweight to develop Type 2 diabetes. If the pancreas cannot produce enough insulin to keep up with rising glucose, diabetes may still develop.
📚 Research
Ma RCW, Chan JCN.
Type 2 diabetes in East Asians: similarities and differences with populations in Europe and the United States.
Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2013.
PMID: 23551121
🔬 What Happened When Researchers Compared Korean and White Adults?
Here is where things get especially interesting.
A 2018 study compared:
43 healthy Korean adults
with
43 healthy White adults
who had similar ages and BMIs.
Researchers used CT scans to measure pancreatic volume and performed glucose testing to examine insulin secretion and beta-cell function.
Average pancreatic volume was:
White participants: about 77.8 cm³
Korean participants: about 68.2 cm³
The Korean group also showed lower measurements related to early insulin secretion and beta-cell function.
But this does not mean:
“Koreans get diabetes because they have smaller pancreases.”
That would be far too simple.
The study included only 86 participants, and diabetes is influenced by many factors including genetics, visceral fat, muscle mass, physical activity, sleep, stress, aging, and diet.
The useful takeaway is that among participants with similar BMI, the Korean group showed relatively smaller pancreatic volume and lower insulin-secretory markers.
This may be one piece of the puzzle explaining why some East Asians can become vulnerable to diabetes without severe obesity.
📚 Research
Roh E, Kim KM, Park KS, et al.
Comparison of pancreatic volume and fat amount linked with glucose homeostasis between healthy Caucasians and Koreans.
Diabetes Obes Metab. 2018.
PMID: 29934972
📌 Researchers Are Still Talking About This in 2025
A 2025 review by Korean researchers looked again at how Type 2 diabetes is changing across East Asia.
Traditionally, East Asian Type 2 diabetes has often been characterized by:
more noticeable limitations in insulin secretion
together with historically
relatively lower insulin resistance compared with many Western populations.
But Korea is changing.
Obesity and visceral fat have increased, which means insulin resistance is becoming more important as well.
Modern Korean diabetes is not simply a “pancreas problem” or an “obesity problem.” Insulin-secretory capacity and insulin resistance can both matter.
📚 Research
Lee J, Yoon KH.
Evolving Characteristics of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in East Asia.
Endocrinol Metab (Seoul). 2025.
PMID: 39814030
🍚 But Korean Meals Have So Many Vegetables!
Absolutely.
A Korean meal may look like this:
🍚 White rice
🥬 Kimchi
🥗 Namul
🥣 Soup
🥢 Tofu
🐟 A little fish or meat
There are plenty of vegetables.
But there is usually one thing sitting right in the center:
Rice.
And carbohydrates do not stop there.
During a normal day in Korea, you might also eat:
🍜 Ramen or noodles
🍙 Gimbap
🥟 Dumplings
🍡 Tteok, Korean rice cakes
🍠 Sweet potatoes
🥖 Bread and bakery foods
☕ Sweetened coffee or drinks
This gives us one very important idea.
A vegetable-rich meal is not automatically a low-carbohydrate meal.
You can eat plenty of kimchi and vegetables while still consuming a significant carbohydrate load from white rice, noodles, bread, or rice cakes.
For someone whose pancreas has less ability to rapidly increase insulin secretion, that post-meal carbohydrate load may matter even more.
🌱 “But Plant-Based Food Is Healthy, Right?”
Usually, that sounds logical.
But “plant-based” does not tell us everything about a meal.
A fascinating Korean study published in 2022 followed:
7,363 Korean adults aged 40–69
who did not have Type 2 diabetes when the study began.
They were followed for up to:
14 years.
During that period:
977 participants developed Type 2 diabetes.
The researchers did not simply ask:
“Do you eat lots of plant foods?”
They looked at something more important:
the quality of those plant foods.
Healthier plant foods included:
🌾 Whole grains
🥬 Vegetables
🍎 Fruits
🫘 Legumes
🥜 Nuts
Refined grains, sweets, and less-healthful plant foods were evaluated separately.
The result was interesting.
A 10-point increase in the healthful Plant-Based Diet Index (hPDI) was associated with about a 14% lower risk of developing Type 2 diabetes.
The important question was not simply “Do you eat plant-based foods?” It was “What kind of plant-based foods are you eating?”
That difference matters.
Plant-Based ≠ Automatically Healthy
Here is an easy Korean example.
You can eat:
🥬 Lots of kimchi
🥗 Lots of namul
while also eating:
🍚 A large bowl of white rice
🍜 Noodles
🍡 Rice cakes
🥖 Refined bread
at the same meal or throughout the day.
Eating lots of vegetables does not automatically turn a meal into a diabetes-prevention diet.
Carbohydrate quality, quantity, processing, fiber, protein, and the overall meal combination still matter.
📚 Research
Kim J, Giovannucci E.
Healthful Plant-Based Diet and Incidence of Type 2 Diabetes in Asian Population.
Nutrients. 2022;14(15):3078.
PMID: 35893932
DOI: 10.3390/nu14153078
📈 Okay… So What Does My Bowl of Rice Do to MY Glucose?
This is where CGM becomes interesting.
CGM stands for:
Continuous Glucose Monitor
Traditional nutrition advice tells us:
“This food is generally considered healthy.”
CGM asks a different question:
“What actually happened to my glucose after I ate it?”
That makes things much more personal.
Two people can eat exactly the same bowl of white rice.
Person A may have a moderate glucose rise and return fairly quickly.
Person B may experience a larger spike that stays elevated longer.
One of the most useful things about CGM is that it lets you compare general nutrition advice with your own real glucose response.
For example, you could compare:
🍚 White rice vs. mixed-grain rice
🍚 One bowl vs. half a bowl
🥩 Protein and vegetables before rice
🚶 Walking for 20 minutes after eating
🏃 Exercise day vs. non-exercise day
😴 Good sleep vs. poor sleep
The question changes from:
“Is this food healthy?”
to:
“How does my body respond to this food?”
That can be a much more useful question.
🛒 Finding CGMs Online in Korea
Here is another interesting part of living in Korea.
If you are paying for a CGM yourself, CGM products can be found through ordinary Korean online shopping channels.
Products related to systems such as Dexcom G7 and FreeStyle Libre can be searched on Korean e-commerce platforms including Coupang.
So consumers who are paying out of pocket can check what products are currently available online.
However, there is an important difference.
Being able to buy a CGM on Coupang does not necessarily mean that the same CGM can currently be connected through Coupang Partners as an affiliate product.
Some CGM products could previously be connected through Coupang Partners.
At the moment, however, CGM devices may not appear as eligible affiliate products in the Coupang Partners search system.
For this reason, DiscoverKoreaGuide currently does not use direct Coupang Partners affiliate links for CGM devices themselves.
If you want to search for a CGM in Korea, try:
🔍 CGM
🔍 Continuous Glucose Monitor
🔍 Dexcom G7
🔍 FreeStyle Libre
🔍 연속혈당측정기
Product availability, sellers, prices, inventory, and affiliate eligibility may change over time.
Amazon(Us)
Lingo Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) 2-Pack. 24/7 Glucose Tracking
"이 포스팅은 쿠팡 파트너스 활동의 일환으로, 이에 따른 일정액의 수수료를 제공받습니다."
🏥 Buying a CGM Online and Using Korean Health Insurance Are Different
This part can be confusing, so here is the simple version.
🛒 Self-Pay Purchase
→ Find an available product online
→ Buy it directly
→ Pay the cost yourself
🏥 Korean Health Insurance Reimbursement
→ Check whether you are eligible
→ Obtain any required prescription or medical documents
→ Follow the reimbursement process
“You can buy a CGM online in Korea” and “a prescription may be required for insurance reimbursement” can both be true at the same time.
They are simply two different pathways.
🤖 AI Literacy | Don't Just Collect Numbers—Learn From Them
If you use a CGM, try not to stop at:
“My glucose was 168.”
Add some context.
What did you eat?
What time did you eat?
Did you walk afterward?
Did you sleep well?
Was it white rice or mixed-grain rice?
Then your CGM readings become much more useful.
For example, you can ask ChatGPT:
“I ate white rice, bulgogi, and kimchi at 7 PM. My glucose was 105 mg/dL before dinner, peaked at 168 mg/dL, and returned to 118 mg/dL after two hours. Help me organize this pattern.”
Or:
“Compare my CGM results after eating white rice, mixed-grain rice, and brown rice.”
Or:
“I ate the same meal on two different days. On one day I walked for 20 minutes afterward. Compare the glucose patterns.”
AI cannot diagnose diabetes or replace a healthcare professional.
But it can help you:
organize your data → notice patterns → ask better questions
And that can be genuinely useful.
🔗 Connect the Dots
East Asian metabolic characteristics
→ Pancreatic beta cells
→ Insulin-secretory capacity
→ Rice and carbohydrate-centered meals
→ Plant-food quality
→ Post-meal glucose
→ CGM
→ Your real-world data
→ Food choices that work better for you
The point is not that Korean food is bad. The point is that a meal can look healthy and still produce a very different glucose response from one person to another.
Korean food has many nutritional strengths:
🥬 Vegetables
🫘 Beans
🥢 Tofu
🌿 Seaweed
🥣 Fermented foods
But maybe we can add one more question to:
“Is this food healthy?”
Ask:
“How does my body respond to it?”
CGM is one tool that can help make that response visible.
📌 Part 2 | What If “Eating Healthier” Makes Your Stomach Hurt?
Now we get to another very real problem.
You decide to manage your glucose, so you:
🍚 Reduce white rice
🌾 Eat more whole grains
🫘 Add more beans
🥗 Eat more vegetables
Sounds great.
But then…
💨 More gas
😣 Abdominal pain
🎈 Bloating
What happened?
A food that may be helpful for glucose management is not automatically comfortable for every digestive system.
In Part 2, we will connect:
Diabetes-friendly eating
→ Gas and abdominal pain
→ Bloating
→ Low-FODMAP
→ Gentler foods such as cucumber
→ CGM + gut symptom tracking
📚 Research References
1. Ma RCW, Chan JCN.
Type 2 diabetes in East Asians: similarities and differences with populations in Europe and the United States.
Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2013;1281:64–91.
PMID: 23551121
2. Roh E, Kim KM, Park KS, et al.
Comparison of pancreatic volume and fat amount linked with glucose homeostasis between healthy Caucasians and Koreans.
Diabetes Obes Metab. 2018;20(11):2642–2652.
PMID: 29934972
3. Lee J, Yoon KH.
Evolving Characteristics of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in East Asia.
Endocrinol Metab (Seoul). 2025;40(1):57–63.
PMID: 39814030
4. Kim J, Giovannucci E.
Healthful Plant-Based Diet and Incidence of Type 2 Diabetes in Asian Population.
Nutrients. 2022;14(15):3078.
PMID: 35893932
DOI: 10.3390/nu14153078
More practical guides to Korean food, health, and everyday life:
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