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The Best Acne-Fighting Smoothie Recipe

sam wood is GoodGlow's Chief EditorWritten by
The Best Acne-Fighting Smoothie Recipe

Smoothies are great for acne-prone skin, right? Plenty of fruits, vegetables, and antioxidants – what could go wrong?

Quite a bit, actually.

Most smoothies are loaded with sugar, containing upwards of 50 or even 100g of sugar in a single smoothie. Even if the sugar comes from fruit, it’s still sugar. Worse yet, many smoothies contain milk or milk alternatives (almond milk/soy milk) that contain acne-causing hormones (insulin, IGF-1, estrogen), omega-6 fatty acids, and antinutrients.

What does this mean for your skin? Well, that “green” smoothie you’re drinking every morning might actually be causing acne and you are hurting your health.

The good news is that it’s not hard to make delicious, naturally low-sugar smoothies that are loaded with nutrients. Not only does it taste great (you’ll actually want to keep drinking it), but it’s loaded with antioxidants, anti-inflammatory compounds, and healthy fats that help eliminate acne and create glowing skin.

Mixed Berry Skin-Clearing Smoothie

Total time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 avocado
  • 1/2 cup coconut cream or coconut milk
  • 1 tsp. organic turmeric
  • 1 tsp. organic camu camu powder
  • 1 cup of spinach or kale (frozen is easier)
  • 1 cup of assorted frozen low-sugar berries (strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries – again, I buy frozen)
  • A dash of cinnamon
  • Optional: coconut oil/ghee butter (for use as a meal replacement)
  • Optional: shredded coconut
  • Optional: macadamia butter
  • Optional: tsp of lemon juice or apple cider vinegar

Directions:

  1. Add all the ingredients into a blender. If you’re adding coconut oil, make sure you add it near the middle to avoid clumping.
  2. For increased thickness, add an extra slice of avocado or less coconut milk/cream
  3. Blend, taste, tweak, and enjoy!

I like to use frozen berries and vegetables for this smoothie. I just find it a lot easier to buy frozen berries and veggies in bulk, but there’s no reason this recipe won’t work with fresh vegetables and berries. Both the Trader Joe’s and the Whole Foods near me has surprisingly affordable frozen berries and vegetables.

Health Benefits

  • Cinnamon (or lemon juice/apple cider vinegar) blunts the insulin-spiking effects of the sugar found in the berries, protecting you from hormonal acne
  • Tumeric has been shown to be extremely effective at decreasing inflammation
  • Camu camu powder is the single most potent source of vitamin C on the planet
  • Coconut milk is the safest milk alternative for acne
  • Spinach and kale are great sources of vitamin A, C, E, and K, as well as essential minerals for clear skin, including magnesium, manganese, and potassium
  • TONs of fiber to help support a healthy gut microbiome

Nutrition Highlights:

Serving size: one smoothie

  • Fiber: 12.29g (49%)
  • Vitamin A: 18,743 (375%)
  • Vitamin C: 555mg (924%)
  • Vitamin E: 5.85mg (29%)
  • Vitamin K: 594ug (743%)
  • Magnesium: 157mg (39%)
  • Potassium: 917mg (26%)
  • Selenium: 12ug (18%)

Nutrition Information:

 

Originally Published: August 01, 2018

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sam wood is GoodGlow's Chief Editor
Analyzed by Sam Wood
Hi I’m Sam Wood. I’m the chief editor, lead acne expert, and health coach behind GoodGlow. I’m also an author of one of the top selling acne books on Amazon, a husband, father of two, and a pretty good cook!

I’m so glad you found GoodGlow and hope the information I have spent the last 10 years cultivating will help you clear your skin and improve your overall health.

I began experiencing acne breakotus as a sophomore in high school, but unlike most of my friends, my acne actually got worse as I got into my 20s. I exercised regularly, ate healthy (or so I thought) and spent hundreds of dollars a month on high end skincare products and supplements to help clear my skin. Despite these measures my acne breakouts and scarring only got worse as the years wore on.

This greatly wore on my self confidence and mental health. Simple things like taking pictures or going out with a large group made me feel self conscious. So I avoided these situations whenever I could help it.

As a last ditch effort I decided to try an extremely restrictive diet recommended by a close friend with an autoimmune disease. After following this diet for about two months my skin started to clear for the first time in over 8 years. The good news is that this restrictive diet is not actually necessary for 99% of people to permanently clear their skin, and over the course of a few months I was able to add back about 90% of my “normal diet”.

After clearing my skin I spent the next 4 years self experimenting on myself with different diets, supplements, skincare products to try and find a pattern for what was triggering my acne breakouts. I even tried different meditation, ice baths, and accupuncture to try and isolate the root cause of the breakouts.

In the end I realized that an extremely restrictive diet was not necessary for clear skin. The most important thing to do is to avoid inflammatory foods in your diet. Some common examples of this are fried foods, alcohol, sugar, and dairy.

Most impoirtantly I stopped reading trendy websites for skincare advice and began reading medical journals authored by dermatologists and nutritionists. Although the information in the articles was great the information was not easily understandable to most readers (including me). I spent hours dissecting individual posts and looking up terms I did not understand. Over the next 6 months I gradually began to understand these journals and started self experiemting some of the research on myself.

After experiencing quite a bit of success personally, I started sharing my research on forums and with close friends struggling with acne. When I shared the research it was in easy to understand, plain English. Everyone I talked to loved what I had to say and kept asking more and more questions. So I decided to start a blog so I could just send someone a link when they asked a question instead of rewriting something I had sent 100 times before 😅

While the same directional principles apply to everyone, acne is very personal and should be treated on an individual basis. That’s ultimately why I created GoodGlow. To help everyone reverse engineer the root cause of their acne and clear their skin permanently.

To date I’ve helped over 2,500 people clear their skin using a natural, holistic approach. If you are unable to find an answer to your question in any of the articles my team has written please reach out and I will do my best to guide you to the proper information and resources so you can make a thoughtful, informed decision. Read more of Sam's articles.

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