The vagina uses natural secretions, immune defences, and “good” bacteria to keep itself healthy.
Eating a healthful, balanced diet might also further prevent infections and improve vaginal conditions.
There are many ways to help keep your vagina healthy: practising safe sex, having yearly well-woman check-ups, exercising regularly, and having any infections treated as quickly as possible.
But you may not realize that eating a healthy diet and choosing certain foods can also promote vaginal health.
Here are some foods to improve vaginal health and others that are not good for vaginal health:
- Yoghurt
Your vagina contains large amounts of “good” bacteria that help protect you from “bad” bacteria that may enter your body. You can help increase levels of helpful bacteria by eating foods such as yoghurt.
The good bacteria in yoghurt may also help your vagina by balancing acid levels in your vaginal fluids. For the best benefit, choose yoghurt brands that contain live, active cultures such as Lactobacillus.
- Fermented foods
Like yoghurt, certain fermented foods contain helpful good bacteria. These include some types of sauerkraut and pickles, kimchi, kombucha, and kefir. Check food labels to see if the product you’re buying contains live, active cultures.
- High-fibre foods
High-fibre foods such as fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds, and whole grains contain compounds known as prebiotics. Prebiotics are a favourite food of good intestinal bacteria, which help keep your entire body, including your vagina, healthy and in balance.
Aim to eat at least 28 grams of fibre or more per day. As a bonus, eating a high-fibre diet also helps keep your bowel movements regular and may reduce your risk of developing chronic diseases such as Type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
- Water
OK, it’s not food. But water can help your vagina by keeping tissues hydrated and helping your body eliminate wastes effectively.
What are the worst foods for your vaginal health?
- Alcohol
Having a glass of wine at night isn’t really an issue. In fact, the Sardinians of Italy tend to have a drink every night as a form of relaxing after a long day. The issue is when we get into having several or multiple cups per night.
Hangovers aren’t the only issue that accompanies excessive drinking. Constant alcohol consumption can cause vaginal dryness and contribute to overall lower vaginal health and may mess with your estrogen levels as well.
- Coffee
You must really be hating this list now. Well, it’s vital you know the truth.
Besides changing your vagina’s natural odour, a study has shown excessive use of coffee may lead to an increase in yeast bacteria due to reduced candida-fighting abilities in your body.
- Fried foods
It’s obvious that we shouldn’t be consuming fried foods: They are high in trans and saturated fats, this gives you another reason to avoid them. Trans and saturated fats are both high in calories and are types of nutrients that the body cannot break down easily.
- Processed sugar
It’s hard to say no to chocolate cake, but too much sugar is harmful to your vaginal flora.
High sugar content provides optimum feeding grounds for bad bacteria. They feed on these simple sugars, grow in number and dominate the good ones. This ultimately leads to multiple vaginal infections such as vaginal yeast infection and bacterial vaginosis etc.
- Processed foods
80% of our diet consists of processed foods such as pasta, white bread, potato and other tubers. This amounts to only 20% of the food similar to what our ancestors took. Moreover, good bacteria do not grow well upon exposure to foods with gluten casein.