The 4 Foods To Cut Out To Improve Your Skin
Firstly, fun fact — our skin cells fully regenerate every 27 days, so we’re constantly turning over new skin, and with these we can see improvements within a month.
Secondly, our skin is always the manifestation of what’s going on inside our bodies.
Our skin is part of our immune system and is our first line of defence. Our body likes to push toxins out of us, and through our skin this happens via sweat and this can often block our pores and cause break outs.
What we eat directly impacts the quality and state of our skin. We’re either feeding it pro-inflammatory foods, or anti-inflammatory foods. And our skin is one of the last places to receive nutrients, so it really does convey the quality of our diet and lifestyle choices.
Gluten, Dairy, Alcohol and added Sugars are the four main immediate drivers of skin imbalances. And this is both on the deeper level of their impact on our gut microbiome.
Gluten creates spaces between our intestinal cells, allowing molecules, bacteria, and other compounds to “leak” through into the blood stream. This drives intestinal inflammation, which will play out on a whole-body level, seeing acne, break outs, rosacea, and dry skin.
Dairy is mucus-forming and is a damp food in respect to Traditional Chinese Medicine. Dairy drives pus formation, and our body wants to excrete it, which often happens through our pores. Cutting out dairy will literally change your skin in a few days (this also includes whey and casein proteins, opt for collagen, hemp, brown rice etc.).
Alcohol is also going to disrupt the microbiome and our skin. It’s pro-inflammatory, disrupts our balance of bacteria, and often dehydrates us, leaving us puffy, our skin dry and dehydrated and flushed.
Added sugar also drives skin imbalances, feeding the unfavourable bacteria and driving gut inflammation, as well as accelerated ageing. This can read of packets as maltodextrin, dextrose, corn syrup, corn syrup solids, evaporated cane juice, fructose sweetener, fruit juice concentrate, malt syrup, raw sugar etc.
Consciously swapping out these 4 for alternatives, whether it’s coconut yoghurt and almond milk, kombucha, virgin skinny margheritas, and honey and dates for a month, or longer, will really positively impact your skin’s health.
