Your skin’s health and your diet are directly related. Simply changing up your diet can have a WORLD of a difference when it comes to improving your skin health. In this article, we’ll be going through some of the foods that you shouldn’t eat in any case in order to improve and clear your skin, and to improve your overall health in general! Here are the top 10 foods to avoid for clear skin:
1. Dairy
Whether you’re vegan or not, cutting out dairy from your diet is always a good idea. Think about it, humans weren’t really meant to be consuming cow’s milk, it’s just something that many humans built up the tolerance for. Despite “building up the tolerance”, dairy is mostly an unnatural supplement for most humans, and consuming it can have a slew of health problems with it. While cutting out dairy completely can be a bit difficult for many of us, reducing the amount of dairy you consume can significantly help your skin and overall health. Aside from the general population, if you are lactose intolerant, you should absolutely cut down on all dairy possible, as consumption of dairy if you’re lactose intolerant will clog your pores as well as upset your stomach. Long story short, cutting down on dairy, regardless of your dietary restriction, might just help you improve your skin quality as well as your overall health.
2. Alcohol
This should come as no surprise to anyone, but alcohol is not good for your health. While many people are willing to ignore the negative effects of alcohol for a little bit of fun, if you’re facing serious skin problems and you don’t know what exactly is causing them, you might wanna cut down on the drinks. Alcohol is horrible for your skin in general and can cause clogged pores, acne, and prevent your immune system from healing your skin itself. In moderation, you shouldn’t see any skin problems arise directly from alcohol, but consuming a lot of alcohol will harm your body and skin in the long run.
3. Cereals
The first (but certainly not the last) breakfast item on our list are the cereals that millions of Americans, mainly due to effective marketing executives, have come to believe are a “staple” of a balanced breakfast. In reality, cereals are mostly sugary trash that barely bring you any health benefits, and actually work against your skin. There are some cereals that aren’t bad for your skin, but those are in the minority and most cereals have a very high glycemic index, which means they are generally horrible for people who suffer or tend to suffer from bouts of acne.
4. White Bread
Bread has been a staple diet for almost every culture in the world since the beginning of civilization, and almost every tiny part of the world has its own special kind of bread and usually, they’re quite healthy of a food on their own. However, in this article, we’re specifically talking about white bread. White bread uses the same flour as any other bread, but you’ll notice that other types of breads are usually on the browner side, that’s because the flour used in white bread is actually bleached to give it its color. This means you’re almost definitely consuming residual bleach when you’re eating white bread. Aside from the artificial whitening of the bread, white bread is also pumped with high amounts of sugar, which as you should already know, is horrible for your skin and will clog up your pores. Next time, go for organic, whole wheat bread which can take some getting used to.
5. Cookies
Cookies may be one of the tastiest snacks you can eat, but they’re an overall negative when it comes to your skin as well as your health. Cookies, like many other items mentioned on our list, have a very high glycemic index which means they will be very bad for your skin if you suffer from acne. You may also start to develop acne if you consume a lot of cookies. Instead, you can look for healthier cookies that don’t use as much sugar or white flour, of which there are many options.
6. Coffee
Usually, it’s the most addictive things that are the absolute worst for our health. While smoking or drinking being bad for your health is pretty obvious, many people tend to overlook one of the drugs that more Americans are addicted to than any other, and that’s caffeine. While caffeine on its own may not be as bad for your skin as you’d think (while not being remarkably good for you either), coffee itself can be horrible for your skin, especially if you drink it every single day as many Americans do. Studies have shown that the more you drink coffee, the worse (existing) acne can get, so while it may not directly cause skin problems, it can definitely worsen them significantly. If you add dairy and sugar to your coffee like most people, there are also the added disadvantages of those ingredients that you’ll suffer on your skin. So if you have a hard time quitting coffee, start by cutting out the milk and sugar from it, before cutting it out altogether.
7. Chips
Potato chips, corn chips, or whatever chips, they might be one of America’s favorite snacks, but they are, unsurprisingly, horrible for you and your skin. Chips also have a high glycemic index, which means they’re one of the foods that cause and aggravate acne the most, but chips are also very high in calories and fat. As you’ll learn further into this article, consuming fatty food can lead to your skin producing an excess of oil, and thus have oil clogging up your pores which is certainly something you do not want if your goal is to have clear skin. Instead of snacking on chips, you can snack on some healthy vegetables with a bit of seasoning, especially if you’ve been having skin problems lately.
8. Fruit Juice
One of the biggest marketing scams of the past century would have to be how fruit juices have been marketed as a healthier alternative to sodas. While sodas are obviously extremely bad for your health, and fruit juices may have some (highly insignificant amounts) of vitamins within them, fruit juices are also extremely bad for your health and skin. In fact, these days there are also a lot of skincare fads that advise you to go on a diet of strictly fruit juices, and we do not recommend you do anything like that unless you want to seriously damage your health. Fruits themselves are very healthy, and often good for your skin. While they have sugar, the sugar in them can easily be broken down due to the high fibrous content that’s carried within the fruit. When you juice the fruit, you’re essentially stripping them of all of their fiber and nutrition, and what you’re left with is nothing but some fruit flavored sugar water. As we’ve already mentioned, sugar is horrible for your skin, and fruit juices have high amounts of sugar in them.
9. Deep Fried Anything
This is another one of the entries that absolutely shouldn’t shock anyone, but considering how almost everything can be deep fried these days (including ice cream!), you should probably know that deep fried foods can lead to significant skin problems. Deep fried foods are some of the leading reasons for skin clogging issues since oily foods will lead to excess oil production in your pores, as well as obesity and other health problems. If you avoid all deep fried food, you’ll be sure to notice an improvement in the quality of your skin.
10. High Fructose Corn Syrup
While you may have never even been aware that you’re consuming high fructose corn syrup at all, you probably have and still do consume it almost every day if you’re American. High fructose corn syrup is an ingredient that is used on many (mostly mass manufactured) foods that people generally consume daily in the United States and many other countries. It acts as a sweetener, but is also used in some savory foods, and is usually one of the main ingredients that are used in a product. The reason it’s used so heavily is because of the large maize industry in the U.S as well as general tastes being adapted to this ingredient. High fructose corn syrup is also one of the most unhealthy things you can consume, it adds significantly more fructose to your diet than the average person needs, is extremely high in calories, and has been linked to various skin problems such as acne and clogging. Checking the back of the packet and seeing if something has high-fructose corn syrup is always a good idea.
