Alkaline Diet and Your Skin

Eating an Alkaline diet is beneficial for not only your digestion and immune system, but also for your skin!

What is an Alkaline diet? Alkaline diet consists of eating foods that provoke an alkaline response in your body once metabolized. These foods create a PH of 7 or above. Alkaline foods consists almost entirely of cleansing vegetables, low sugar fruits, pure water, soups, juices, salads, whole grains, omega oils etc and as such it provides the body and skin with all of the nutrition it needs to maintain health. It is important to follow the 80/20 principle when eating on an alkaline diet to give your body a proper balance. This means, eating 80% alkaline and 20% acidic. That might look like a big green salad with a small amount of chicken, for example. See Acid/Alkaline chart for a guide.

How can an Alkaline Diet affect the skin?

Eating alkaline foods calms the body by raising your body's PH to an alkaline state. This eases digestion, calms and cleanses the system. This has the same effect on your skin. Alkaline foods also contain high volumes of vitamins like vitamin A, zinc, protein, and omega 3 fatty acids which help fight acne. Alkaline diet has also been dubbed the rosacea diet for its aid to calming redness in the skin. Acidic foods such as artificial sweeteners, coffee, soft drinks, cheese, milk, beer, etc. increase vascular dilation and flushing of the skin. Good news or bad news first? OK, I'll go with the bad news first. The bad news: Any stimulant that wakes you up in the morning by stimulating your entire body, nervous system, and brain can stimulate your sebaceous glands resulting in acne, rosacea, rosacea papules, flushing, and stress. The good news is: Eating an alkaline diet gives you more energy! You won't need those morning stimulants that cause an acidic environment in your body.

Eating Alkaline is Easy! How? Keep it simple. The more you overcomplicate a meal, the harder your body has to work to digest it. Use this chart for choosing alkaline foods to create meals with. Keep your plate colorful. If your plate looks white and brown you probably are not getting the nutrition you need.

• Keep it simple
• 80/20 principle
• Prepare meals ahead of time
• Eat a rainbow!

References:

http://www.energiseforlife.com/wordpress/2006/04/30/the-alkaline-diet-and-rosacea/ http://www.livestrong.com/