Before I begin, I want to state that I am not a medical doctor, nurse, nutritionist or health care worker. I am a woman who drastically reversed my eczema through diet and lifestyle change. So what I’m telling you – I know it works if you adhere to it consistently. And I know that’s hard to do seeing as that many Americans love cheeseburgers with fluffy buns, ice cream and snickers. Oh, and Starbucks too. But when you have eczema (and most likely food and environmental allergies to tag along) you have to change your diet in order to heal your body and your immune system. While there are many things I can advise you on in terms of diet – what you should and should not eat – here are 3 foods to avoid if you have eczema and you want to reverse it without drugs.
1: Refined Sugar. This includes white sugar and brown sugar. Sugar helps create yeast, which aggravates inflammation. That means you’ll have to cut out sugary processed foods (think donuts, cake, cookies and candy) and make your own treats with honey or date syrup. It also means no sodas or processed juices. I stick to pineapple juice or water. For baked goods I use honey and am going to start experimenting with date syrup in the near future.
2: Dairy. The dairy that we typically consume is processed. Therefore, it has chemicals and substances in it that you normally wouldn’t eat or consume. Also, dairy has been known to have high enough traces of a form of sugar, which causes yeast. And as stated before yeast aggravates inflammation. The good news is that there are quite a few animal milk alternatives: rice, pea, coconut, soy, cashew and almond. I personally prefer rice and coconut milk. But depending on your tastes, I’m sure you can find something you like enough to replace cow’s or goat’s milk. Cheese was hard for me to give up. But there are vegan cheeses out on the market that come close enough. I wouldn’t eat them with crackers or in vegan macaroni and cheese – it just isn’t the same taste or consistency as actual cheese. But the flavor is good enough to eat with a turkey burger or on a home made pizza.
3: Coffee. That includes decaffeinated coffee too. I know. I loved Starbucks too! But coffee fans the flames of eczema because caffeine aggravates inflammation. I know this to be true because I’ve had fairly immediate reactions the few times I did try to drink coffee after I changed my diet. I also tried decaffeinated black tea as a replacement – but even decaffeinated teas have a low level of caffeine. So I had to learn how to power through my days without caffeine shots or coffee replacements. You may not be ready to give up coffee yet. But I promise you that if you continue drinking it in any form – or any other caffeinated beverage – your eczema will continue to flare up.
One day I’ll write about the wonderful foods you SHOULD eat for healing eczema. But for now, I just wanted to share 3 culprit foods that I know will keep your eczema flared up. What other foods do you avoid to keep your skin healthy?
