Simple dietary solutions for skin allergies

For whatever reason, I’ve suddenly been running into people who want to know how both my daughter and I cleared up our skin problems by simply watching what we eat.

This is actually a good time to revisit the issue because back-to-school week has many parents worrying about packing healthy kids’ snacks and lunches — especially when allergies are an issue. It also can’t hurt the rest of us to get that complexion under control for looking good during the upcoming fall/winter holiday party season!

As a lot of you know from my blabbing on this blog, I had horrible acne for most of my life. There was also a stint with allergy season rashiness and overall dry skin. Then came the post-divorce freak-out, when my neck and upper back erupted into thick, itchy blotches that took years to get rid of. My daughter Gabi had problems too. From infancy, she had a severe eczema that plagued her through toddlerhood.

Today, we both have quite nice skin. We never took a single antibiotic or prescription drug. Most of the credit goes to the our basic eating regimen: gluten-free, sugar-free, cow milk-free and soda-free. We also rarely have fruit. No red meat either  (Gabi is vegetarian). But dark leafy greens are an important food group…I could go on and on.

Instead, please allow me to introduce you to Jeffrey Yuen, the noted Chinese herbal medicine master. He’s a dear friend and great resource. My daughter and I plan our meals around his dietary recommendations. You can get his comprehensive food list HERE.

The only thing I should add is that we didn’t find any quick fixes. Changing eating habits is a sloooooow, challenging process because we’re talkin’ lifestyle issues. But once we got into the flow of the new life, we’ve discovered that we are truly what we eat.  :)

If you have any questions, comments or stories of your own, do tell!  xo