Have you ever noticed how some people don’t smell bad even if they’re sweating? It’s because they eat clean foods and avoid those that cause odours. In today’s post, guest blogger, Maureen Denard, shares with us the top foods that make us smell bad.

Body odor is an extremely sensitive issue for many of us. We spend hundreds of dollars on perfumes and deodorants so that we can smell better and prevent sweating. But we fail to understand that we’re on the wrong track by “preventing sweating” which is an important function of the body.

Sweating is absolutely necessary in order to cool your body and expel toxins from your system, and when you use deodorants to block your pores, you’re inviting ill-health and disease. Instead of focusing on artificial ways to reduce body odor, look to the foods you eat to smell good and stay fresh as a daisy all day long.

To help you do this, here’s a list of foods to avoid and why they make you smell bad.

Top 15 foods that make you smell bad

1. Red meat: It is difficult to digest and often lies stagnant in your digestive tract. When this undigested food putrefies, it releases toxins and foul-smelling gases. This in turn is ejected as flatulence and sweat that reeks.
2. Processed and junk food: Any food that is too rich and difficult for your body to digest, any food that is processed and refined which contains too much sugar, white flour, hydrogenated oils and other processing agents, and food that is labeled as “junk” rot in your intestines and produces a foul odor in your breath and through your sweat.
3. Foods with pungent (strong-smelling) ingredients (used in large amounts): Garlic and other spices not only cause bad breath, they’re also responsible for body odour because they produce sulfurous gases when digested, which in turn are absorbed into the blood stream and released through your lungs and pores.
4. Foods that are too fibrous: If you eat too much of foods that contain soluble fiber (fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans and legumes), gases like hydrogen, carbon dioxide and methane are released when they get digested in your large intestine. When these exit your body by way of flatulence, you tend to wish you were alone.
5. A diet that is low in fiber: The opposite is also true – fiber is good for digestion and when your diet is poor in fiber, the residual food in your intestine causes the formation of gases like methane, leading to flatulence and belching.
6. Foods eaten in a hurry: Any food eaten too fast causes you to swallow too much air (a mixture of oxygen, carbon dioxide and nitrogen). When this is expelled from your body in a burp, you can bet you don’t smell like roses.
7. A diet that is low in carbohydrates: You’ve always believed that carbs are the villains of your weight loss program, but when it comes to body odor, these energy-laden foods save the day. When you limit your carb intake, you automatically take in more proteins; this starts burning your body’s fat stores for energy, and this releases ketones into your bloodstream, which in turn makes your breath smell foul.
8. Dairy products: While they’re good for health in moderation, they tend to cause bad breath because they’re high in proteins that the bacteria in your stomach break down to create volatile sulfur compounds like hydrogen sulfide and methyl mercaptan which smell foul.
9. Drinking liquids through a straw: This applies to sodas and colas and other drinks that are aerated as well – when you gulp down any drink through or straw or drink any liquid that has gas in it, you tend to burp because of the buildup of gases in your stomach. And depending on what else is in your stomach, your breath and surroundings reek accordingly.
10. Chewing gum: You may chew gum for a variety of reasons – to get rid of a nicotine habit, to make your breath smell better (how ironic), or just to while away the time. But when you choose the sugar-free kind, your body does not completely digest the low calorie sweeteners like sorbitol, and when bacteria acts upon it in your intestine, it causes a buildup of gas which leads to burping and flatulence.
11. Beans and legumes: Many kinds of beans cause gas because they contain a sugar called oligosaccharide, and this in turn causes flatulence and burping which makes you smell bad.
12. Foods rich in choline: Foods like egg and liver are rich in choline which is not easily digestible; this causes gases to accumulate and generates a foul body odor.
13. Fried and baked foods: They contain fats and oils that become rancid with the passage of time, and this in turn leads to poor digestion and excessive belching and flatulence.
14. Coffee: Coffee causes bad breath because the acidity in this beverage is much higher than that of human saliva.
15. Alcohol: You know you reek the morning after a night out on the town, simply because you’ve had too much to drink. Alcohol makes your sweat and your breath smell really bad, so avoid it if you want to stay clean and fresh.

About the Author

This guest post is contributed by Maureen Denard, who writes on the subject of MSN Degree. Maureen can be reached at her email id: denard12.maureen@gmail.com.

Are there any foods that make you smell bad that aren’t on this list? Share them with us! And now what about some cleansing foods and recipes that make us smell purty? Check out Live Lighter’s 119 Cleansing Recipes.