Food For Your Healing

Cleansing and Detoxing Your Skin

There is food for acne that helps cleanse the skin from the inside out. Typically, these foods are high in chlorophyll, sulphur, and/or enzymes. Spicy and sulphur-rich foods ‘burn and cleanse’ away the toxic debris within cells. Your increased blood circulation from spicy foods exposes even the smallest capillary cells of your skin to iron, oxygen, and nutrients, while undergoing an osmosis-reaction to exchange fresh fluid for saturated and ‘stale’ fluid within the cells. This can only occur when enough fresh and live fluids (water and vegetable juices) are offered to flush and balance the cells.

Sulphur

• Known since the time of Hippocrates (~400 BC) for cleansing and soothing your skin from bacteria, inflammation, and infection. Sulphur assists in moderating your internal acid/alkaline balance, resulting in balanced skin externally.
• Increase your intake by eating spicy and sulphur-rich foods such as cayenne, jalapenos, onion, garlic, leafy greens, radishes, red pepper, maca, eggs, seafood, nuts and seeds (such as walnuts, hempseed, and flaxseed for additional omega-3s) and Brazil nuts for extra skin-protective selenium. MSM is a nutritional sulphur supplement. It is also found in topical agents to help shed dead skin cells that trap anaerobic-bacteria in your pores (bacteria that would otherwise be killed by oxygen exposure).

Iron

• Iron and manganese have a similar function within your body and are very important to your skin’s texture and appearance.
• Binds with oxygen which is then delivered to all the cells in the body, enabling cells to function to their fullest potential (cell nourishment, structure, & cleansing).
• When iron levels are low, you may find yourself craving sweets. This only adds to cell toxicity.
• Iron and manganese are found in beet greens, cumin, onions, parsley, spinach, most dark green leafy vegetables, seaweed, hemp seeds, almonds, and other seeds.
• An old Ayurvedic acne treatment is a tea brewed of cumin seed (1/2 tsp.), fennel seed (1 tsp.), and coriander seed (1 tsp.). Drink up!

Green foods are high in chlorophyll (chlorella, spirulina, parsley, spinach, etc.), which has a very similar composition to blood. Chlorophyll has magnesium as the central-bound atom, whilst your blood, or heme, has iron as the central-bound atom. Chlorophyll helps clean up the blood and escort unwanted and havoc-causing toxins out of the body with less resistance and side-effects.

Enzyme-rich foods like papaya, pineapple, and raw live foods help digest food and toxic build up within your digestive tract and blood stream that can often lead to acne.

Zinc

• Important factor in enzyme function and blood sugar balance – both VERY important when battling acne.

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  Strengthens the immune system and controls the amount of sebum (oily substance) released from the sebaceous glands that are attached to your hair follicles. Over-production of sebum is a major culprit of clogging pores, making zinc-rich substances the most highly recommended food for acne.

• Found in wheat germ, sesame, pumpkin, squash, and watermelon seeds, cacao, peanuts, yogurt, whole grains, potatoes, and some meats (lamb, roast beef, veal liver, oysters, crab, clams, etc.)  Vitamin C, E, and B6 ensure proper absorption of zinc.

Vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid)

• Metabolizes fat, protein, and carbohydrates.
• Helpful all the time, but specifically when trying to work through a toxic build-up within the body.
• High amounts found in cauliflower and mushrooms; also in sweet potatoes, legumes, broccoli, turnip greens, tomatoes, sunflower seeds, yogurt, squash and eggs.

Soluble and insoluble fiber sources should be added to the diet when detoxing because they act as scrubbers (insoluble fiber like ungrounded flax & psyllium) and sponges (soluble fiber like inulin and ground flax) for toxic substances to discreetly hitch a ride out of the body. We want to detoxify the cells and organs of your body so the acne causing toxins can be trapped and eliminated; thereby not recirculating and ‘re-toxifying’ the body.

Do not be alarmed if your acne gets worse before it gets better while participating in the detoxing and cleansing phase. The body will be active in trying to eliminate and release the build up within the cells as effortlessly as possible – the result is hard to avoid when our skin is our largest organ of elimination.

Silver water or gel (colloidal or homeopathic preparation) is the world’s strongest natural antibiotic THAT ONLY KILLS THE BAD BACTERIA, leaving good bacteria functionally intact. It can be used topically (gel or water) and internally (water) on any body part or in any orifice.

Silica

• Contributes elasticity and strength to skin, as well as to bones, hair, muscles, tendons, and nails.
• Reduces inflammation and helps clean up and heal infected pores and hair follicles.

Rejuvenate Your Skin

You want to ingest antioxidant-rich and rejuvenating foods throughout your life. Our bodies are constantly aging and the process is sped up with the addition of the stress-inducing factors such as pesticides, herbicides, and pollutants found in our air, food, water, and building structures! Not to mention the increased and accelerated aging and chronic inflammation involved with chronic illnesses such as heart disease and diabetes, cancer, autism and Alzheimer’s. We want to support our immune system and encourage healthy cell replication and defense as much as possible.

Vitamin E

• Strong antioxidant and topical healing agent
• Protects vitamin A & essential fatty acids from oxidation.
• Found in nuts (particularly almonds), seeds, wheat germ (in cereal or oil form), red bell pepper, turnip greens, and mango to name a few.

EFAs (essential fatty acids)

• Getting your required amount (or MORE!) of essential fatty acids is a key to maintaining healthy skin… and hormones, joints, mood, heart, brain, and  digestive function. Needless to say, we all need to devote a piece of our daily attention – taking 15 seconds – to take an omega supplement or eat various foods rich in omega 3-6-9’s.

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  Some of the best EFA-rich foods containing the PROPER ratio  (1:1 up to 1:3) of omega 3-6 for acne are hempseeds and berries! Blueberries have an omega 3-6 ratio of 1:1.5 and are high in vitamins C, K, manganese and antioxidants. Raspberries have an omega 3-6 ratio of 1:2 and are high in fiber. Strawberries have a balanced omega ratio and are high in vitamin C.

• The typical Western diet gives us an omega 3-6 ratio of 1:20, therefore, we need to increase our intake of omega 3s and reduce our omega 6s to reach a proper EFA balance.
• You can get high, pure and effective omega 3 EFAs from krill oil (high-end fish oil) and marine phytoplankton. You can also get fabulous plant source omega 3s from flax seed, avocados, and walnuts.   You need to be aware that many cheaply farmed fish oils are available and should be avoided – Look for wild fish sources or algae and plankton sources even lower on the food chain.
• Do not take in notably large amounts of fats and oils (ex. only 6 almond amounts to 1 serving), even when from nutritious sources like nuts and seeds. This can lead to imbalances resulting in symptoms such as disrupted cholesterol levels and excess fat storage.  You may be pleasantly surprised at the alleviation of particular ailments and stressors (inside & out) when committed to ingesting your daily balanced healthy oil supplement and/or foods with naturally occurring balanced omega ratios.

Keep in mind, every cell in the body is replaced every 7 years. It doesn’t all happen in the ‘7th year’, but if you adopt new habits and continue them for 7 years, every system in your body will run under the ‘new’ governing composition you’ve created.

Laugh!

It has been said that ‘laughter is the best medicine’. This applies specifically to acne by bringing increased oxygen and blood flow to the face. Laughter also charges your immune system and reduces stress!

Sunshine

Sunshine boosts your production of vitamin D, has the potential to kill bacteria via UV rays, and has been noted by others to help acne and stress!

This article was contributed by Lauren Jamieson. Lauren’s passion for nutrition started almost 20 years ago when she was diagnosed with Type 1 ‘juvenile’ diabetes. Lauren is currently taking the Ultimate Raw Nutrition Certification, led by raw food guru David Wolfe, as well as on her way to becoming a Certified BodyMind Nutritionist.