The Worst Foods For Your Skin

Popcorn, cappuccinos, bottled water—some of the most delicious (or most boring) foods can be hard on your skin if you overdo it.

White bread, bagels, popcorn… “Foods with a high glycemic index give you a sugar rush that will be terrible for your skin,” says Ava Shamban, an assistant clinical professor of dermatology at UCLA. “When you increase sugar levels in the bloodstream, the sugar that’s not picked up by the liver can get into your collagen, which your body may then identify as damaged goods and chew up. It can also cause inflammation that could make you break out.” You can find out a food’s glycemic index at glycemicindex.com—anything under 55 is considered low.

Anything caliente. If you have rosacea, don’t pour hot sauce on your pizza. “It’s the skin condition that’s most sensitive to food,” says Shamban. “And spicy foods trigger inflammation and flushing.”

Yogurt, cappuccinos… Dairy gets a lot of flack for being bad for your skin, but the truth is “we don’t have enough data to know for sure, so we can only say it’s a potential culprit,” says Shamban. So far, studies have shown a correlation between dairy and acne but not causation, and anecdotal evidence is less reliable than you’d think. “If you gave up eating yogurt or drinking skim milk every day and had fewer breakouts, you wouldn’t know if it were because of the dairy or its sugar content,” says Shamban. Your best bet is to look for dairy that’s made a) without added sugars and b) from cows that are not treated with hormones. “The hormones cows are fed can be steroid analogues, which can make you break out,” she says.

For the complete list of foods, check out the full article here.

By Elizabeth Siegel, Allure Deputy Beauty Director