Which Foods Cause Eczema?

Clear Your Skin Naturally with Your Own
Custom Designed Eczema Diet

Which foods cause eczema? Learn about eczema and food allergies and how to clear your skin naturally and painlessly with your own custom designed eczema diet!

What Causes Eczema?

Researchers have discovered that eczema is linked to an overactive immune system which is reacting to irritants from the environment which cause an allergic reaction.

These irritants can be foods, chemicals in foods, chemicals in your skin care ingredients, chemicals in your laundry detergents, household cleaning products, or even scratch fabrics like wool.

If you want to control or eliminate your eczema, the key is to find out WHICH irritants are causing your outbreaks.

Which Foods Cause Eczema - Eczema and
Food Allergies

Any food which can cause an allergic reaction can cause eczema. The two most common food allergens are wheat and dairy products.

I know, these are two of the most common comfort foods!!

Wheat can be found in most breads, cookies, cakes, crackers, pretzels, snack foods, pasta, gravies and even in soy sauce.

It is the gluten in wheat that causes an allergic reaction, and gluten can also be found in rye, barley and oats. Learn more at our gluten allergy symptoms page.

Dairy products can be found in milk, ice cream, cottage cheese, yogurt and cheese, and may be added to many desserts, baked goods and other recipes.

Other possible foods which cause eczema are:

• Seafood
• Eggs
• Corn
• Nuts
• Soy Products
• Acidic fruits such as citrus
• Honey
• Spices
• Highly salted foods
• Caffeine
• Chocolate
• Processed foods which contain preservatives and colorings

Which Foods Cause Eczema in Babies?

Baby eczema is extremely rare in babies who are breastfed. It is unfortunately very common in bottle fed babies. If at all possible, give your baby breast milk which will not only prevent eczema but strengthen his or her whole immune system.

Which Foods Cause Eczema - How to Create Your Own Eczema Diet

Learning which foods cause eczema can help you to begin to discover how you may be triggering your eczema. Is it your morning coffee with cream and sugar? The yummy bagel with cream cheese? Or perhaps those chocolate treats sitting in the candy bowl at work?

It's a little overwhelming, since there are SO many foods that cause eczema, and knowing which foods cause YOUR eczema is a process.

The simplest way is to keep a food journal of what you eat each day, and when your eczema breaks out.

You may begin to see a pattern, for example when you visit Mom and eat lasagna for dinner, the next day you wake up itching like crazy!

Once you know WHICH foods cause your eczema outbreaks, you can find less irritating alternatives.

Creating an Eczema Diet WITHOUT Pain

It's all well and good to THINK about making a positive change in your diet that will help your sensitive skin. It's another thing to actually DO it, because breaking old habits is hard!

Food is our comfort and our nurturance, and so it's easy to be attached to our afternoon pretzels or our nightly ice cream dessert!

The key to creating an eczema diet that actually WORKS for you is to find eczema diet alternatives ... foods that you can substitute for the "real thing".

At first, you'll miss your old foods, but over time as your body adapts to having less irritants, you will find that you actually LIKE your new and healthier food substitutes.

For example:

If you get eczema outbreaks when you eat wheat, there are now many gluten free alternatives that are delicious so that you don't need to be deprived!

I stopped eating wheat recently and found that many of my aches and pains went away, AND my skin cleared up.

Now I don't even miss wheat as I no longer have carbohydrate cravings! Instead of regular spaghetti I eat gluten free brown rice pasta. Instead of wheat muffins I have gluten free whole grain muffins, made with all kinds of gluten free grains.

A More Precise Way of Discovering Which Foods Cause Eczema

If you have very severe eczema, you may want to try an elimination diet for a week or more. This diet is very limited, as you can only eat a few types of non-inflammatory foods.

I recommend you only do an elimination diet with the help of your doctor or health care practitioner. The reason for this is that the diet is not nutritionally balanced, and so it best to have professional supervision.

After a week or more of eating no allergy producing foods, you begin to add back one new food item at a time, every five days or so. See how your body tolerates that food and then try another one.

When you get symptoms, you know it is related to the most recent food you added back!

Holistic Eczema Treatments

Sometimes it is overwhelming to sort through all the different types of information that is out there about how to heal your eczema.

Where do you start? Which remedies actually work? I found a really helpful book on healing your eczema with holistic treatments which is called Eczema Free Forever . I like it because it offers simple and natural solutions in an easy to understand format, and they guarantee that their approach will help you, or they will refund you the price of the book!

More Helpful Eczema Tips

• Using hypoallergenic skin care products can help you to reduce the chemicals and irritants that inflame eczema that are in most skin care products.
  
  Unfortunately, it's not as easy as it sounds to find hypoallergenic products that actually are safe for sensitive skin.
  
  Did you know that MOST hypoallergenic skin care products contain toxins and chemical irritants that can irritate your eczema? Learn More
• Request a free copy of my NEW 52 page eBook Clear ANY Skin Problem Naturally WITHOUT Expensive Creams or Endless Doctor Visits, which contains natural skin care secrets that that we don't share anywhere else on our site.
  
  You will receive a proven natural skin care and beauty program that will help you to clear up your eczema naturally. Request this now while it is still free!

Image Credit: David Castor via Wikimedia Commons