Raspberries: An Outstanding Source Of Acne-Clearing Nutrition

If there’s one food group I could make every acne patient suddenly develop an irresistible taste for, it would easily be fruits and vegetables, closely followed by herbs and spices. Nutritious plant foods like broccoli and kale are an especially great opportunity for clearing acne because most Westerners eat so few of them.

Consider the following statistics: a 2010 study found that only 26% of adults in the USA eat over 3 servings of fruit and vegetables per day. From the year 2000 to 2010, yearly intake of fruits and vegetables increased in just one state, Idaho, despite the relentless hammering home of the message by doctors. In ten states, there were statistically significant decreases, thanks to the steady march of processed food.

The average Western citizen, and by extension the average acne patient, is nowhere near fulfilling the classic “five a day” mantra. Since fruits and vegetables are full of skin-enhancing antioxidants, vitamins, enzymes and minerals, all acne patients should arrange a diet with plenty of them…

…and one of the ultimate choices you could make to kick off such a strategy is the common red raspberry, which is not just one of the greatest fruits for acne, but one of the most powerful skin-clearing foods found anywhere.

 

The facts on raspberries

Firstly, as a berry fruit, raspberries (scientific name rubus idaeus) are automatically beloved by most health professionals, since strawberries, cranberries and their relatives are famous for their anthocyanin antioxidants (which produce the red colour). The phrase “an apple a day” might be the one that every man and his dog knows but it’s actually berries that perform best in studies. 

Raspberries themselves have a ton of great studies to their name. Some notable results include:

• Prevention of cancer by encouraging the death of cancer cells, AKA apoptosis. This effect is attributed to a class of antioxidants called ellagitannins.
• An increase in adiponectin, a protein that can prevent type 2 diabetes.
• Accelerated weight loss and burning of fat cells due to the compound rheosmin, better known as raspberry ketones.
• Possible prevention of cancer due to increasing the activity of a protein called P53, which suppresses tumour formation.

Raspberries are an extremely healthy fruit, beating the likes of melons with ease. The factors above seem unrelated to acne at first, but if you’ve only just stumbled across this website, then understand right now that acne is intricately linked to the health of your entire body.

You have to cure acne with diet and lifestyle, not hygiene. You have to clear acne from the inside-out, not the outside-in, so any nutrition-packed health food is an automatic contender for being a skin-clearing powerhouse.

Next on the list is the raspberry’s historical medical usage. Look back in history and the raspberry emerges as some sort of miracle. We know that humans have eaten raspberries since at least 3BC. Greek legends state that raspberries are only red because Nymph Ida, a female deity trying to impress the Greek god of thunder Jupiter, pricked her finger on the thorny plant and stained every single plant worldwide with blood.

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That’s a legend which dates back thousands of years. Since then raspberry plants have been brewed into a leaf tea for treating diarrhoea, sore throats and burns. English doctors during the middle ages used raspberries for treating fevers and childhood illness.

According to one text (written in ye olde English), raspberries were thought to be great for digestion: ‘the fruit is good to be given to those what have weake and queasie stomackes’. This usage was also applied in Australia, where raspberry fruit juice was fed to livestock, humans and pet birds to calm down gastrointestinal distress. Raspberries were touted by old European doctors as being good for gum disease, combatting fever, easing digestion, sobering drunkenness, and soothing stomach aches.

Are any of those ancient folklore powers promising for acne? Definitely – a recurring theme from history is that raspberries are excellent for digestion, and acne can be caused by digestive problems as varied as impaired mineral absorption and leaky gut syndrome.

Now let’s move on to the scientific evidence, which is just as positive for acne…

 

Benefit 1 – a well-absorbed vitamin C source

First on the acne-clearing checklist is the basic nutrition. Raspberries’ main selling point here is, like many fruits, their strong vitamin C content.

Vitamin C is an overlooked nutrient for acne because it 1) relaxes your body by lowering stress hormones and 2) dramatically accelerates the healing of old acne scars by revving up collagen formation. Check out the raw nutritional data for raspberries below:

• Vitamin C – 44% of the RDA per 100 grams.
• Vitamin A – 1% of RDA.
• Calcium – 2%.
• Iron – 4%.
• Vitamin E – 4%.
• Manganese – 34%.
• Vitamin B6 – 3%.
• Magnesium – 5%.
• Selenium – 0%.
• Vitamin D – 0%.
• Zinc – 3%.
• Potassium – 4%.
• Vitamin B12 – 0%.

Raspberries are far from the best fruit or food for vitamin C found in a marketplace. Strawberries contain 97% of the RDA, and cantaloupes have them beat with 61%.

Other fruits contain a lot more, especially the likes of pineapple, with 79%, and the famous scurvy-preventing vitamin C of oranges, with 88%.

But 43% is still excellent. Oranges and pineapples are also a lot higher in sugar than raspberries, with 9 grams and 10 grams respectively compared to a measly 4.7 grams.

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What’s more, a raspberry is a berry, and every berry species on earth is packed with flavonoid antioxidants. Vitamin C is a very delicate nutrient, which is why it is severely depleted during microwaving and boiling. It is so delicate that it’s commonly vaporised in your stomach before it ever gets absorbed through your digestive tract and into your bloodstream where it can prevent acne from forming.

Flavonoid antioxidants such as quercetin and rutin have been proven to protect vitamin C from oxidising agents, and thus maximise its absorption…

…and it happens that raspberries are one of the richest sources of flavonoid antioxidants available.

That means that the vitamin C in raspberries may be extra potent compared to that of pineapple, oranges or cantaloupe melon, fruits which have only 10% of the raspberry’s antioxidants. Therefore it’s just as effective a source overall, despite containing a lot less.

Finally, you have the advantage that raspberries are almost always eaten raw. Compared to fruits, green vegetables like kale, broccoli and spinach should always be cooked to deactivate the mineral-binding oxalates, and that can wipe out the vitamin C by up to 33% (study). Potatoes and sweet potatoes are generally cooked to make them taste good.

Meanwhile, the vitamin C in raspberries makes it to your plate fully intact.

It doesn’t stop there; raspberries are also a nice source of magnesium, an underrated mineral which clears acne by lowering stress hormones and enhancing sleep quality, and contain a surprising amount of the all-important zinc. I say surprising, because almost every excellent zinc source in nature (meaning excellent ones which your stomach can actually absorb) is an animal-based food, such as meat, eggs and oysters.

 

Benefit 2 – the number one fiber fruit

While the moderate vitamin C count is certainly good for acne, the one area where raspberries really stand tall above the rest is their fiber content.

100 grams of raspberries contains a huge 7 grams of fiber per 100 grams. That easily beats blueberries and strawberries, which both contain just 2 grams each.

In fact, raspberries contain more fiber than any common fruit except for prunes. There’s a common belief among amateur health enthusiasts that if a fruit belongs to the berry family then it’s automatically a fiber powerhouse. However, the raw scientific assessments all show that raspberries are the cream of the crop. Blackberries are high in fiber as well, with 5 grams per 100 grams, but not as fantastic as raspberries.

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How does fiber clear acne? Dietary fiber is most famous for smoothing out digestion, but that power can extend to your acne too.

You can’t digest fiber; humans completely lack the digestive enzymes necessary, unlike herbivores such as cows and sheep. So instead, healthy strains of bacteria in your gut ferment fiber and use it as fuel to expand, and thus expand their influence. Good bacterial strains such as lactobacilli and bifidobacterium gradually crowd out the unhealthy ones like clostridium and candida.

The end result for acne is 1) improved absorption of vital nutrients like zinc, 2) prevention of leaky gut syndrome, 3) resistance to acne caused by slow digesting carbohydrates like FODMAPs, and 4) a reduction in stress, because good gut bacteria manufactures up to 95% of your body’s serotonin.

Eating more fiber is such generic dietary advice that nobody gives it a second thought, but for those reasons it’s an overlooked way to improve acne.

We’ve covered various prebiotics elsewhere on this website; burdock root contains the powerful prebiotic inulin, certain strains of good bacteria love to feast on cocoa polyphenols in chocolate, and oregano contains an aromatic oil compound called carvacrol which wipes out harmful species.

But getting more fiber is your baseline gut health strategy; fiber is easily the most abundant prebiotic you eat. What’s more, the fermentation of soluble fiber creates healthy free fatty acids as a by-product, the main ones being butyrate, acetate and propionate.

These have a wide variety of indirect benefits for acne. For example, butyrate may substantially reduce oily skin and blocked pores, since it can improve insulin sensitivity according this, this and this study.

Butyrate is also the preferred fuel of colon cells, meaning that increasing fiber intake can make your digestion of nutrients all round more efficient. Butyrate may even soothe digestive diseases like Crohn’s disease and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), which are both strongly linked to acne.

Raspberries may be second-rate next to strawberries for vitamin C but if you’re on the hunt for some fiber, they’re outstanding.

Interestingly, the structure of raspberries is the main reason why; unlike the single body of flesh of a blueberry or strawberry, raspberries are an aggregate fruit. They’re made up of nearly 100 tiny, round, red fruitlets, similarly to blackberries, and that means they have far more seeds and a far greater surface area of fruit skin overall, because there’s skin around each one hundred of those tiny fruitlets.

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You can tell that raspberries are great just by eating them; the seeds, skins, tiny hairs, and materials that constantly get stuck between your teeth are all examples of plant roughage that functions as fiber. When you chew them they feel very dense, whereas blueberries are more jelly-like.

We already pointed out that old English doctors thought raspberries were great for digestion; the stellar fiber content may be one reason why.

 

The raspberry – the nemesis of free radicals

Finally, we have the acne advantage that raspberries are traditionally famous for: their enormous antioxidant count, which you can deduce from their delicious, rich and varied flavour. Strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries all beat nearly every other fruit for antioxidants, with the one exception of the legendary pomegranate.

Firstly, antioxidants are vital for clearing acne: they are an overlooked strategy for preventing clogged pores, because they prevent the production of squalene peroxide on your skin’s surface. Squalene peroxide is the most comedogenic (pore-blocking) substance in nature.

Antioxidants can also defend against inflammatory damage from air pollution and cigarette smoke, preserve your vitamin E, vitamin C and vitamin A levels, and defend literally every cell in your body from free radical destabilisation.

The statistics show that raspberries have a top-notch ORAC score of 5065, beating both blueberries (4669) and strawberries (4302). Raspberries easily beat apples (4275), bananas (795), green grapes (1018), melons (319), pineapples (385), and watermelons (142).

Among fruits which you can actually buy from a grocery store, as opposed to health magazine rarities which you have to voyage across five continents to track down, only blackberries (5905) and pomegranates (10500) are better.

The raspberry’s antioxidant powers don’t just exist in one test tube model that has no relation to the complex human body either; they have been confirmed in a variety of scientific tests.

Scientists in one study, for a reason we may never know, decided to analyse the effects of raspberries on golden Syrian hamsters. Raspberries inhibited a major type of free radical called superoxide anion and increased levels of the master antioxidant glutathione. The effects were so strong that raspberries relieved the hamsters from atherosclerosis.

In another study, the antioxidants in raspberries were powerful enough to kill stomach and colon cancer cells, with minor success, and kill breast cancer cells with major success.

There’s also two studies where scientists fed raspberries into a simulated gastrointestinal digestion model, with some stellar results. The raspberries significantly inhibited reactive oxygen species generation and increased cellular levels of glutathione (GSH).

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The most interesting nugget of information is that raspberries defended against damage from acrylamide. That’s a free radical generating toxin which is formed during high heating of starch containing foods, such as potatoes and wheat (which, by the way, is a terrible food for acne). It’s often found in the “browning” on the outside of roast potatoes, for instance.

Wild raspberries could inhibit all the toxic effects of acrylamide. Note that glutathione is the foremost antioxidant your body manufactures by itself, and is often dubbed the master antioxidant (read more about it in this article).

The other study on simulated digestion was similar: wild raspberries inhibited reactive oxygen species (free radical) generation, stabilised cell membranes, and increased glutathione levels.

The toxin applied was different this time too. It was ethyl carbamate, a group 2A carcinogen which contaminates many alcoholic beverages such as beer and wine (while we’re here, alcohol can cause acne but not always). Therefore we have evidence that raspberry consumption can provide antioxidant defences against a wide variety of toxins, not just acrylamide.

The greatness of raspberries is simple. Increasing antioxidants is an effective strategy for clearing acne, and eating raspberries is an effective source of antioxidants.

 

Raspberries have a unique antioxidant profile

Additionally, raspberries are not interchangeable with strawberries or blueberries, despite having a near identical ORAC score. There’s literally thousands if not millions of antioxidant types in nature.

No two fruits in nature have the same exact profile of antioxidants, and many antioxidants are actually phytonutrients, smaller plant compounds which have their own hidden powers.

For example, blueberries contain the pterostilbene phytoalexin which has strong anti-inflammatory powers. Pomegranates are the only known food source of punicalagins, which inhibit the stress hormone cortisol.

Comparing raspberries to strawberries, the raspberry contains two ellagitannin antioxidants previously unidentified in any other food, called lambertianin C and sanguiin H-6. Strawberries, meanwhile, are a much richer source of an antioxidant called pelargonidin 3-O-glucoside, with 47.14mg next to raspberry’s 1.65mg…

…but raspberries then fight back with very high levels of ellagic-acid-arabinoside, an antioxidant which may be unique to raspberries. The point is that no two fruits are the same.

The most interesting thing is that only a select few of the total phytonutrients in nature are really researched, including none of the four above ones. Therefore, the differences between strawberries and raspberries outlined above could be highly significant for your acne.

Consider this: what if the sanguiin antioxidant mentioned above has the power to increase serotonin formation? That would make you much happier and thus keep acne-causing stress hormones in check.

What if lambertianin C can secretly enhance the potency of vitamin A, by protecting it from free radicals and maximising its delivery around the bloodstream? Vitamin A is the greatest acne nutrient for preventing oily skin.

Anything is possible. Until science advances exponentially to such a level that we can identify and analyse every single obscure compound in every single food, it’s always smartest to eat a wide variety of plant foods.

That’s why raspberries are worth eating even if you’re getting the same quantity of antioxidants from elsewhere. Lumping any two fruits together into “fiber/vitamin C/antioxidant” categories doesn’t reveal the true extent of their potential.

The rule is – the more antioxidants a food contains, the greater its potential for hidden acne benefits, because almost all phytonutrients (the scientific term for these smaller plant compounds) function as antioxidants as well. Therefore, that’s yet another advantage for raspberries.

 

Standout antioxidant alert

As it happens though, there are two phytonutrients found in abundance in grocery store raspberries which are well-researched, and have some highly promising powers for acne. Those phytonutrients are p-coumaric acid and rutin.

P-coumaric acid is an antioxidant found in various different foods including honey, peanuts, carrots, tomatoes and garlic. Many studies have been performed on p-coumaric acid. They include this one, where the substance was shown to strongly inhibit free radical activity, and also prevent new free radicals from forming by increasing cell membrane stability.

Free radicals are one of the arch enemies of clear skin, because the deactivation of them depletes vital antioxidants such as vitamin E.

There’s also this excellent study, which tested p-coumaric acid against a wide variety of free radicals, but mostly lipid peroxides. P-coumaric acid could inhibit lipid peroxidation, or formation of free radicals in fat tissues, by 71.2%.

It even beat vitamin C and vitamin E, which inhibited free radicals by 59.7% and 64.5% respectively. That’s a particularly great outcome for us acne patients because sebum is a lipid, and peroxidation of sebum is the single biggest cause of clogged pores (read this article for more on that subject).

However, what’s most interesting is that p-coumaric acid has been shown to inhibit the formation of nitrosamines (study), an especially damaging type of free radical which is churned out by gut bacteria when exposed to synthetic nitrates.

The most notorious sources of nitrosamines are poorly-produced cured meats like bacon and ham, and tobacco smoke in the form of tobacco-specific nitrosamines. Therefore p-coumaric acid could defend your skin against the notorious damage of those foods and of cigarettes.

Say that despite all the strategies and willpower you’re putting into it, you can only cut your cigarette intake in half and not fully quit them. In that case, p-coumaric acid may be particularly great at preventing the free radical damage to your skin.

The effects are clearly powerful, because another study found that p-coumaric acid could defend against stomach cancer caused by those nitrosamines.

Its lucky then, that raspberries contain 2.30mg of p-coumaric acid per 100 grams, easily beating strawberries (0.21mg), apples (0.27mg), pears (0.18mg), plums (1.11mg), and cranberries (1.08mg).

Among fruits, only dates and grapefruit are better, with 2.89mg and 4.00mg respectively. You’ll commonly see tomatoes touted as one of the standout sources, but they actually contain a very low quantity – only 0.13mg.

 

The greatness of rutin

Rutin, meanwhile, is easily the most notable antioxidant in raspberries.

The word rutin may sound familiar if you’ve read other articles on this website, and that’s because we discussed it in this in-depth analysis of bananas.

We discussed how rutin was compared to quercetin in a study on rats, and found to be strongly anti-inflammatory, even more so than quercetin, which is one of the best researched antioxidants of all. We also covered how rutin may improve acne by suppressing the production of stress hormones…

…and the good news is that raspberries are a spectacularly better source of rutin than any type of banana. In fact, after analysing the raw data on phytonutrients in fruits, I would label rutin the raspberry’s signature compound, similar to bromelain in pineapple or lycopene in tomatoes.

Websites claim that rutin is found in apples, tomatoes, plums, blackberries and blackcurrants. Raspberries are never mentioned.

Yet red raspberries contain a staggering 11mg of rutin per 100 grams, compared to 0.22mg, 0.14mg, 5.9mg, 3.89mg, and 4.65mg for the fruits above respectively. Among fruits, red raspberries are only beaten by another form of raspberries themselves, the black raspberry (19mg).

Scientifically, rutin is a bioflavonoid antioxidant, a family of phytonutrients collectively classed as vitamin P, since they are so vital for health. Rutin is also known as quercetin-3-o-rutinoside and has a yellow to yellow-green colour in its pure form.

Outside the realm of acne, rutin is one of the best researched of all flavonoids. It’s famed for strengthening the blood vessels, and consequently it has an ability to remove varicose veins and increase resistance to bruising. There’s hence a new supplement market for rutin which is rapidly assembling as we speak.

For acne we have the anti-inflammatory and promising stress-reducing effects discussed in the banana article. However, it also appears that rutin can improve insulin sensitivity:

• Scientists in this study from 2014 tested whether rutin would improve the symptoms of insulin resistance in diabetic mice. Rutin turned out to have very promising powers. Firstly, it increased the activity of important insulin receptor proteins. Secondly, it enhanced the action of the GLUT-4 enzyme, responsible for the uptake of glucose. Rutin also normalised the mice’s score on the oral glucose tolerance test. Overall, rutin improved the insulin sensitivity of the mice.
• This study found that rutin could reduce insulin resistance in obese mice with a fatty liver. The rats were fed a high fat diet, which increased blood levels of insulin 4.6 fold, but the administration of rutin reversed that increase by 71.2%. As a bonus, the study also found that rutin suppressed certain genes associated with chronic inflammation. The inflammatory chemical TNF-a was particularly suppressed. Chronic inflammation is the joint biggest cause of acne alongside squalene oxidation (read more here).
• This study investigated both rutin and the ECGC antioxidant found in green tea. Both antioxidants were found to improve insulin signalling, which led the scientists to conclude that rutin was a promising strategy for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. T2D is essentially a highly advanced form of insulin resistance.
• Finally, this recent 2016 study is as close to a bullseye as you can get. The study was simple: a bunch of elderly rats were gathered, and tests revealed that they had elevated insulin, low insulin sensitivity, and elevated blood glucose, all conditions associated with acne. The scientists then fed them rutin, and observed a reversal in all of the above problems. If this study were on humans rather than rats, it would be perfect.

If the technical terms mentioned there mean nothing to you, then the summary is this: rutin can improve the action of insulin, lowering the amount you need in your bloodstream. That’s excellent for acne because insulin (not DHT or testosterone, that’s a myth) is the worst hormone for oily skin.

Rutin’s final power is another promising one. Rutin is commonly incorporated into some anti-allergy preparations designed to relieve asthma and hay fever symptoms, since it can inhibit the immune system chemical called histamine which is responsible for them.

It also happens that excessive histamine release can trigger the type of food allergies which can secretly cause acne, so rutin may improve your tolerance to foods you normally cannot stomach. Again, rutin could be one reason why medieval European doctors observed an improved tolerance to otherwise allergenic foods when prescribing raspberries.

What we have with rutin is a phytonutrient that can lower inflammation, possibly inhibit the release of stress hormones such as cortisol, and reduce levels of one of the biggest villains behind blocked pores. Raspberries are the best fruit you can eat for that phytonutrient. The only foods with more are black olives and raw asparagus.

Raspberries also contain small quantities of the promising antioxidants quercetin and kaempferol, enough for an added acne bonus on top of the greatness above.

Other antioxidants in raspberries include: antirrhinin, pelargonidin 3-O-sophoroside, ellagic acid, traces of resveratrol, catechins, pelargonidins, delphinidins, chlorogenic acid (responsible for the health benefits of coffee), tilirosides, gallotannins and vanillic acid.

There’s a massive variety of antioxidants in there; they could do anything. If you’re obsessed with scientific research, then use that list and you could discover something great.

 

Low in sugar and FODMAPs

The downsides of raspberries are almost non-existent. To start with, they’re in the elite circle of low sugar fruits which you can eat plenty of without worrying about your skin. 100 grams of raspberries contains only 4.7 grams, which will take forever to add up.

You can easily eat a box of raspberries per day without your inflammation going sky-high (sugar is one of the main factors in chronic inflammation). The problem with fruits for acne is that while they’re bursting with phytonutrients and vitamins, they also contain an average of about 10 grams of sugar per 100 grams.

Hence you have to be smart when approaching fruits, but raspberries, alongside strawberries and blackberries, both with 5 grams, are the lowest of the low.

Furthermore, the ratio of the sugars is optimal. The two main monosaccharides, or simple sugars found in nature are fructose and glucose. Both cause inflammation and acne in excess, but fructose has the bonus damaging effect of causing insulin resistance and a fatty liver. Hence, it’s ideal to have a sugar ratio tilted in glucose’s favour, and raspberries have exactly that: a glucose to fructose ratio of 2.4:2.3.

Raspberries are also not a major source of the other hidden acne villain found in healthy foods: FODMAPs. FODMAPs are poorly digested carbohydrates which explain many of the unexplained acne breakouts people get from plant foods; apples, blackberries, apricots, onions, garlic and cabbage are common examples.

Those foods are actually great for acne otherwise, particularly garlic, because FODMAPs are only a problem in susceptible individuals. If you are susceptible though, they’re a big risk to your skin…

…but raspberries are low in almost all types of FODMAPs, including fructose, polyols, and galactans, raffinose, and sugar alcohols. In fact they’re generally prescribed by doctors on a low FODMAP diet.

 

The one problem with raspberries

There’s only one potential disadvantage that could derail things with raspberries, and that’s the fact that they are one of the worst foods for pesticide contamination.

Berries such as strawberries and blueberries are notoriously drenched with agrochemicals, firstly because insects are obsessed with feasting on them (if you’ve ever stumbled across some wild strawberries you’ll have witnessed that for yourself), and secondly, because berries are tiny and have a big surface area of skin for the chemicals to accumulate on.

From my research, it’s likely that raspberries are not as deadly as strawberries or blueberries for pesticides. They’re also packed with so many antioxidants that your skin might get away with it; pesticides, herbicides and insecticides generally cause acne by depleting antioxidants such as glutathione.

Nevertheless, if you want to push your acne-clearing efforts to the limit of human biology then you should either buy organic ones, or choose a low pesticide fruit instead, if you lack the money.

One of the fruits with consistently low levels of agrochemical contamination is the pineapple, because of its thick protective husk, and pineapple is an excellent source of vitamin C and the anti-inflammatory enzyme bromelain. Watermelon, grapefruit, and kiwis are also regular members of the “clean fifteen” club.

Then there’s sweet potatoes, perhaps the king of cheap antioxidant nutrition. Sweet potatoes contain hardly any pesticides and are as cheap as a blade of grass, yet are almost as rich and varied a source of antioxidants as raspberries are. If you live in a village, you can also pick wild blackberries, which are clearly as natural as they come and contain naturally higher levels of antioxidants due to developing their own natural pest defences; e.g. they’re not kept in a bubble by farmers and their pesticides.

To save money on organic raspberries, hunt down some frozen ones: in the UK, you can buy 125 grams of fresh organic raspberries for £2.75, but 300 grams of frozen organic raspberries for the exact same price. Fresh berries must be shipped frantically across the country or even a whole continent in order to stave off the inevitable deterioration in flavour.

Frozen raspberries, meanwhile, retain their flavour for up to six months in storage. They can be shipped in with slower and cheaper transport, and that slashes the overall production costs.

You can melt the berries into a bowl and then eat them with a spoon. Alternatively, you could melt them into a bowl, then add a serving of natural bio-live yoghurt to that bowl and stir it in to create a naturally flavoured and acne-friendly dessert.

 

Conclusion

In this article on strawberries I concluded that they were the greatest commercial fruit for clearing acne ever. After reviewing all the evidence, that opinion still stands – but I’d now rank raspberries at the top alongside them.

To summarise, raspberries are effective at preventing acne if you need vitamin C, fiber or antioxidants. They’re thus an excellent fruit if you have symptoms like digestive discomfort, slowly healing acne scars, high stress levels, or oily skin.

While strawberries contain twice as much vitamin C and just as many unique antioxidants, raspberries contain slightly more antioxidants in total and a three times higher content of fiber.

Overall, the raspberry’s three most notable acne powers are 1) their beneficial effect on digestion and gut health, 2) being the richest fruit source of rutin, and 3) being an all-round fantastic source of antioxidants.

NEXT: the ultimate diet for clearing acne permanently

 

 

Thanks for reading!