Right now, there are millions of teenagers and twenty somethings needlessly in despair because they think they’ve tried everything. They’ve tried 147 face wash brands and the only untraveled road ahead is accutane, which they’re terrified of.
Well, the happy truth is that the opposite is true. Nobody on Earth has tried every acne remedy, a handful have tried 20%, and the vast majority have tried just 2%.
In fact, even common vegetables can contain extremely strong acne powers. That includes berries, green vegetables and root tubers.
So walk away from that accutane dealer hanging around under the bus shelter, and discover the single greatest acne powers of 10 easily available foods.
One – apples
The common round apple, pickable in woodlands everywhere, may be the most unexotic fruit in existence. Yet these fruits hold many acne-clearing secrets and their strongest is their antioxidants.
The inner white flesh of an apple has the property of being fragile in the face of sunlight. While hanging on a tree, intense UV radiation can oxidise the cells needed for its photosynthesis (ironically), but the apple has a solution: a layer of antioxidants in its skin.
That’s why the skin is green to red, and when translated to your skin, free radicals will be deactivated and your skin will be less inflamed.
A Granny Smith apple has an ORAC antioxidant score of 4275, which is beaten by blueberries (4669) but unmatched by green grapes (1018). It’s said that one apple matches the antioxidant potential of 1500mg of vitamin C (60mg is the recommended daily amount).
The antioxidant subtypes in apples include quercetin, ferulic acid, caffeic acid, p-coumaric acid, and chlorogenic acid. A sizeable chunk are the well absorbed free phenolic compounds.
The apple’s vitamins are weak, they lack unique acne-clearing gimmicks – antioxidants are where they specialise. Bonus hint: studies show that apples work particularly well if you pick them from a tree on a farmer’s private property.
Two – spinach
The number one powers of spinach are 1) getting huge forearms and the prized ability to rip your shirt by flexing your muscles, and 2) convincing your child not to eat vegetables for the next ten years (that one might be unintentional though).
For acne, spinach has many great powers like sun protection, plentiful vitamins and minerals, but lowering lipid peroxides rules supreme. Lipid peroxides are the most scientific member of the acne league of evil.
Everyone knows free radicals, the ageing enemies that scams promise to deactivate, but lipid peroxides are fat soluble versions. Therefore, they drain fat soluble antioxidants – including important acne nutrients like vitamin E.
Spinach lowers lipid peroxides specifically. It’s packed with lutein, and in this study, this antioxidant lowered high bloodstream levels of malondialdehyde (a lipid peroxide biomarker) triggered by puffing on cigarettes. 117 human patients were tested. Lutein also prevents lipid peroxide increases triggered by UV radiation.
With your vitamin E molecules protected in their treacherous passage through the hostile bloodstream, this power of spinach could lower acne outright.
Three – celery
A celery is just a bitter stalk to be avoided for most people. Yet it contains a secret that leaves even pro dermatologists scratching their heads.
It’s coveted in magazine columns everywhere – celery’s best acne power is increasing glow.
Its secret is improving blood flow and its method is containing arginine. This amino acid provides the bitterness in part, but arginine is a natural component of your body’s blood pressure programming. Arginine causes vasodilation and this can moderately increase the nutrients and antioxidants flooding to your skin.
Every cell in your face will be injected with vitality and the result at a glance will be glow. The effect of basic oxygen cannot be underestimated either – studies have showed its importance for subtle red tinges.
Where celery cements its dominance is with a second blood-flow boosting compound – 3-n-butylphalide. This guy is proven to enhance cerebral blood flow. Celery is decently anti-inflammatory too, but its nutrients are weak – blood flow is its niche.
Four – blueberries
For such a hailed fruit, blueberries have surprisingly few downright amazing studies related to acne.
Their two fortes, however, are lowering inflammation and increasing antioxidants, and of the two, lowering inflammation is slightly better.
Blueberries contain a rare phytonutrient called pterostilbene, which is structurally related to the life-extending resveratrol from red wine. This has 80% absorption into the bloodstream and extinguishes the fires of inflammation superbly.
Also buried within the blueness of blueberries are the rare anti-inflammatory compounds malvidin-3-glucose and malvidin-3-galactoside. The simple advantage is making the immune system’s response to acne bacteria less potent, spilling over into the surrounding pores. P.acnes will always stimulate a little inflammation, but by snacking on blueberries, it won’t reach the acne-causing threshold.
When it comes to inflammation, blueberries have seen it all, done it all – they’re reduced NF-kappaB, T helper cells, swollen rat paws, TNF-a and methylperoxide across various studies.
This study on 25 male athletes exemplified the situation; after 250 grams of blueberries for 6 weeks daily, the anti-inflammatory interleukin 10 and natural killer cells (don’t worry, it’s just a name) rose.
Five – pineapples
Pineapples don’t slack off when it comes to clearing acne. Their vitamin C is criminally underrated next to oranges, but their best power is undoubtedly bromelain.
The rare pineapple compound that breaks down proteins and makes acne nutrients within it more easily absorbed. Bromelain cuts through amino acid bonds like a butter knife. It is a protease, a natural mirror image to the digestive enzymes in your own stomach.
This power makes bromelain a popular meat tenderiser, and a secret sauce added to marinades, the kind that makes your meat so soft that you favour one brand without knowing why. Workers in pineapple fields have even lost their fingerprints over many years! That region probably then became the world capital for bank robberies.
More positively, a nutrient that bromelain is proven to enhance is quercetin, the gut healing onion antioxidant. Acne-clearing nutrients like zinc, magnesium and carnitine should all gain effectiveness. Not only can common foods clear your acne, but they also have super special abilities like this.
Nothing instantly noticeable will happen, but instead, a subtle improvement in each area. Your pimples will vanish slightly faster, your fine lines may subtly smooth out. You’ll be stuck with the mirror for hours checking different angles and debating with yourself.
Six – grapes
Like apples, a mostly unexceptional fruit which breaks that rule in style for acne-clearing antioxidants.
The two are subtly different though. Apples have a high ORAC score (4275), plenty of measurable polyphenols. Red (1837) and green (1018) grapes are weaker for raw antioxidant counts, but somehow perform exceptionally well in studies:
ONE: in cardiovascular disease patients, 12 weeks of consuming red grape powder led to a significant fall in lipid peroxides and total oxidative stress (study).
TWO: grapes increased the body’s homemade master antioxidant glutathione by 71%.
THREE: grape juice was sufficiently antioxidant-rich to protect against cancer, defending DNA against oxidative damage. A clear rise in bloodstream antioxidant capacity was observed.
The wide variety of antioxidants doesn’t help either. Red grapes, the father of red wine, contains plenty of its famous antioxidant resveratrol. Grapes also contain procyanidin trimer C1, catechin and epicatechin. This raises the happy prospect of tackling free radicals through multiple angles, through multiple specialities – maybe that’s why grapes are fantastic in studies. Remember to buy organically.
Seven – kale
Kale is not the easiest vegetable to incorporate. It’s bitter, green and tough, and it’s also a weed.
Break past this mental barrier though, and kale has countless real powers, and the absolute best for acne is its density in vitamins and minerals. Broccoli is nutritious, but kale is in another acne-clearing league.
Firstly, there’s 8% of the RDI for magnesium. For other nutrients, you wouldn’t bat an eyelid at this figure, but magnesium is so difficult to obtain from the diet that it becomes excellent, particularly when the magnesium in kale is well-absorbed compared to almonds.
Where the party really gets started is with vitamin A (308% of the RDI) and vitamin C (200%). The former deals in oily skin and glow, while vitamin C controls collagen and stress hormones. This easily beats the respectable broccoli with 12% and 148% respectively.
The vitamin C is caught between two camps: 1) the swallow an orange for vitamin C camp, and 2) the kale gently dissolves any fat cells it touches camp. The simple fact of kale’s vitamin C is often forgotten in the middle.
Then there’s calcium (14%), a great strategical element. It helps you to ditch dairy, which I don’t automatically recommend for acne but is necessary for people with sensitives to its proteins.
Eight – turmeric
Listen to Indian Ayurvedic medicine, and you’ll have hundreds of uses for this orange spice. At first you’ll be eating turmeric in the hope of preventing clogged arteries. The next minute you’ll be feeding your cow turmeric while the midday sun shines on its back to produce milk infused with gold speckles that seals wounds upon contact!
The fact is that turmeric has several acne powers, but its anti-inflammatory powers stand far above them all.
Part of it is the renowned antioxidant curcumin, unique to the plant. But there’s also smaller curcuminoids like monodemethoxycurcumin and bisdemethoxycurcumin.
Turmeric jumps right ahead of smaller inflammatory chemicals like TNF-a and downregulates the molecule controlling them, NF-KappaB, the holy grail of soothing inflammation. Curcumin can also lower c-reactive protein, the classic biomarker of bloodstream inflammation. Diseases related to inflammation are another indication – turmeric can slam the breaks on.
In my opinion, its best non-acne benefit (and there’s plenty) is Alzheimer’s prevention. Turmeric dissolves brain amyloid plaques like no other; these plaques are public enemy number 1 in Alzheimer’s research HQ.
Nine – onions
The poor old onion, which is forever torn between being a vegetable or a herb, has many powers for acne. However, its high quercetin content is the one where it beats all other contenders in the ring.
Quercetin is a common antioxidant with a very uncommon power. It’s a gut healing superstar.
Firstly, it ends leaky gut syndrome; it strengthens your gut’s semipermeable membrane and the tight junctions comprising it, including claudins, occludins and zonulin-1. This might mean little to you, but it’s vital: improving nutrient absorption and building an iron gate against inflammatory compounds entering the bloodstream.
The second power though, might be more familiar: antihistamine. Quercetin decreases the severity of acne-causing allergies, by binding to mast cells that produce the allergy chemical histamine. Quercetin decreases histamine at the genetic level, blocking the calcium irons it needs to function. Therefore, so might onions.
Ever had a mysterious orange allergy, which condenses into the form of a deep red pimple? Eat onion soup for two weeks and your beloved fruit may be restored, once histamine falls.
Ten – whey protein
It’s normally used to pack on explosive muscle gains – 50 pounds in 62 days, according to legends. Nobody considers whey protein for clearing acne – in fact, it’s usually the opposite.
True, whey protein contains the same milk proteins that spark pimples in the sensitive. Nevertheless, its dense nutrition imbibes it with clear skin power, and what stands tall above the rest is boosting glutathione.
Whey protein has all 3 amino acids your body needs to make this acne antioxidant and it has them in perfect proportions. They are cysteine, glutamine and the rare glycine (unless you like egg shell membrane sandwiches).
Better, this cheese-making by-product contains glutamylcysteine – a near unheard of molecular bond of the first two with a supreme absorption rate. Glycine is an amino acid lacking in common muscle meats like sirloin or ham slices.
If your skin can’t stand milk, then whey protein will send you flying off the rails. If you live in the heart of a polluted city with shifty looking train passengers blowing cigarette smoke in your face, then whey protein could transform you (thanks to majorly depleted glutathione).
Conclusion
This article could almost serve as an acne gameplan by itself. It has numerous bases covered, and it’s also proof that acne-clearing opportunities lie even in your downmarket local grocery store with a busted air conditioning unit, let alone a rare fruit in Polynesia.
It also shows that you can’t just grab any old fruit for optional results. Every fruit has different specialities, so for truly clear skin, and the glow, a properly thought out strategy is what you need.
Don’t give up and let the people who dismiss dietary strategies make you lose hope!
Thanks for reading!