Body odor and bad breath are some things that never comes up for discussion among people. This is a very private matter and people go about solving it their own way. Many things influence body odors, such as diet, gender, occupation, mood, genetics, and medications. People think that by using stronger deodorants and sweat blocking agents, they can rid themselves off this problem. However, little do they understand that sweat has its function to perform in the body, and by blocking it you do more harm than good to the body. Changes in your diet can help you reduce bad body odor.
How Body Odor is Caused?
Sweat is produced by eccrine and apocrine glands. Eccrine glands produce most of the salty sweat that cools your body. Apocrine glands secrete fatty sweat in areas that are hairy including the arm pit, the groin, and the scalp. The function of this sweat is to remove the toxins from the body (these toxins include those created by foods you eat). When this sweat comes in contact with the bacteria on the skin, it produces bad odor. These days, most of us are unable to stick to any meal routine, and eat whatever comes our way, sometimes grabbing a bite on the run during a hectic day. Also, we hardly find time to follow a good dental hygiene. All these factors give rise to the offensive by-product: bad body odor.
10 Foods to Avoid
Here is the list of foods to avoid in this context:
- Strong-Smelling Foods: Vegetables and spices with strong smells when digested produce sulfurous gases that are absorbed by the blood and eliminated through lungs and skin pores. This produces a characteristic bad breath and body odor. Examples of such foods are garlic, onion, and curry spices.
- Red Meat: Red meats take a long time to digest. When the undigested food putrefies, toxins and foul-smelling gases are released which is the cause of the bad-smelling sweat. A study published in the August 2006 issue of Chemical Senses concluded that women judged men who ate a non-meat diet to be more pleasant, more attractive, and to have a less intense smelling body odor than men who ate meat.
- Alcohol & Caffeine: Although taking alcohol and caffeine products (coffee, tea, chocolate, sodas, etc.) have become a way of life, limiting these will result in increase in the number of fresher-smelling individuals around.
- Processed & Junk Food: Processed and junk foods that have too-much salt/sugar, white flour, hydrogenated oils, etc., tend to rot in the stomach, producing undesirable breath and body odor.
- Low Carbohydrate Diet: Cutting on carbohydrates leads to intake of more protein-rich foods. This helps burning the body's fat stores. However, this process releases ketones into your blood stream which makes your sweat smell bad.
- Dairy Products: Dairy products are also rich in protein, which when broken down in your stomach, gives rise to hydrogen sulfide and methyl mercaptan, which give rise to foul smell.
- Choline-rich Foods: Foods that are choline rich gives a characteristic fish smell to the sweat. Some people, who cannot digest these foods easily, smell "fishy." Examples of such foods are eggs, liver, fish, and legumes.
- Fried & Fatty Foods: Fat and oils present in fried and fatty foods turn rancid as time passes, which leads to poor digestion. This also leads to bad body odor.
- Tobacco: Tobacco smoke mixes with other elements and comes out through the sweat glands, resulting in a typical bad odor. Even after stopping smoking, this odor takes many weeks to get off the body.
- Trimethylamine Foods: Some people have a genetic disorder known as trimethylaminuria. In this condition, the body is unable to break down the amino acid, trimethylamine, which again results in a fishy body odor. There are many foods that contain this amino acid, such as seafood, fish oil, eggs, liver, kidney, milk from wheat-fed cows, peas, beans, soy and soy products, peanuts, cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and cauliflower.
What to Eat to Prevent Bad Body Odor
- Drink plenty of water.
- Eat foods containing lot of fiber.
- Veggies are generally low in choline. Include a lot of raw veggies in your food, such as carrot, cucumber, tomato, radish, lettuce, and raw cabbage.
- Fruits are also low in choline. Eat plenty of fruits such as apples, strawberries, pears, orange juice, grape juice, pineapple, bananas, blueberries, and watermelon.
- Have a glass of red radish juice every day. This can also be applied to sweaty areas to get rid of bad odor.
- Have 2 to 3 charcoal capsules per day. This absorbs waste matter and reduces fermentation.
All these diet changes will help you worry less about your body odor and save you a whole lot of money in the process, which you would have otherwise spent on deodorants and the likes!
