We all know it’s important to eat a healthy diet, but did you know that your healthy diet should include foods for vaginal health?
Yes, in addition to practicing good vaginal hygiene, you can add some key foods to your diet for a healthy vagina. Some favorites include yogurt (or other probiotic foods, such as kimchi), cranberries, sweet potatoes, and many more. It’s important to add foods for vaginal health into your diet, since they give you the benefits of a balanced pH, good lubrication, and an overall healthy vagina.
In this article we’ll first look at overall women’s vaginal health, and then talk about specific foods that are good for your vagina — and some that are not so good.
Prioritizing Your Vaginal Health
Maintaining a healthy vagina should be part of every woman’s self-care routine, especially because maintaining women’s vaginal health can be a critical factor in preventing unwanted vaginal infections, like bacterial vaginosis, yeast infections, and UTIs. While there are foods that are good for your vagina, it’s important to note that food alone isn’t going to help you maintain a healthy vagina.
Before you get too focused on eating foods for good vaginal health, remember how important it is to practice overall good vaginal hygiene. When you’re thinking about how to have a healthy vagina, eating the right foods is a part of the answer, but your vaginal hygiene habits are really more important.
- Avoid scented feminine hygiene products, such as douches, scented tampons, or pads.
- Change out your menstrual products every few hours.
- Avoid using scented soaps on or around the vaginal area.
- Practice safe sex – always urinate after intercourse and use contraception, especially with multiple partners.
- Plan visits with your gynecologist on a regular basis.
In addition, your vaginal health is improved by maintaining a healthy overall lifestyle by getting enough sleep and exercise, and eating a healthy diet.
The Best Foods for a Healthy Vagina
Overall self-care is essential, but if you really want to have a healthy vagina, it’s important to eat the best foods for vaginal health.
Here are a few foods that experts recommend:
- Cranberry juice (unsweetened) or a cranberry supplement on a regular basis, especially if you’re prone to UTIs
- Cheese for healthy bacteria
- Green tea, which can help stave off yeast infections
- Leafy greens, to increase circulation and help you avoid vaginal dryness
- Avocado, which is rich in the nutrients you need for vaginal health
It’s also important to think about your vaginal microbiome — the bacterial makeup of your vagina. If it’s populated with good bacteria, your microbiome will thrive and help fight infections. When putting together a diet designed to boost these good bacteria, eating probiotics is one of the best ways to support your vaginal health.
Probiotic Foods for Good Vaginal Health
You may have heard about the importance of taking a probiotic for your gut health, but did you know that you can also take probiotics for vaginal health?
Some of the best foods for vaginal health include yogurt (unsweetened, of course) with naturally occurring lactobacillus bacteria. A vagina works best when there are plenty of lactobacillus bacteria in it, and you can help the production of these useful little guys by supplementing your healthy vagina diet with plenty of foods that contain naturally occurring lactobacilli. If you’re not a big fan of yogurt, you can also check out sauerkraut or kimchi, both of which have naturally occurring bacteria.
Why should you eat these probiotic-filled foods? Lactobacillus bacteria can help keep the pH of your vagina balanced, which will in turn help to ward off any infections. Not only will yogurt and foods with probiotics help keep your vaginal pH balanced, but research indicates they could also help stave off yeast infections.
Foods That Increase Female Lubrication
Maybe you’re not interested just in vaginal health, but in foods that can increase female lubrication. Experts recommend sweet potatoes, dark leafy greens, apples, and foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids for increased lubrication, overall vaginal wetness, and better-quality naturally occurring vaginal lubrication.
Why are these foods so good at increasing female lubrication?
Sweet potatoes contain high levels of vitamin A, which is linked to fertility.
Foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids which can be found in fish oil, walnuts, flax seed, and eggs, help promote circulation, which can prevent vaginal dryness.
Dark green leafy vegetables like kale or mustard greens also help prevent vaginal dryness.
Apples contain phytoestrogen, which helps promote better sexual function and lubrication, and increases the ability to orgasm.
Plus, Here Are Some Foods To Avoid
If you’re serious about learning how to have a healthy vagina, there are also a number of foods to avoid.
It’s best for women’s vaginal health to avoid alcohol and sugar, which can cause an imbalance of bacteria in the vagina and contribute to bacterial vaginosis and other vaginal infections. Yeast is notorious for feasting off of sugar, so avoiding sugar is a great way to have a healthy vagina. It’s also important to avoid refined carbohydrates, since they tend to have high sugar contents and can disrupt the natural workings of a healthy vagina.
Some other foods to avoid or at least limit are asparagus, broccoli, and onions, which can increase vaginal odor. While odor is not necessarily unhealthy, you maybe want to avoid these foods before oral sex if you’re concerned about how you smell down there.
Finally, coffee can potentially cause your pH to become imbalanced, but experts say that balanced with enough water, it shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
Conclusion
The vagina is a complex ecosystem. It’s hard enough to always make sure we’re staying on top of our overall health, but now we have to think about maintaining a healthy vagina, too? Fortunately, it’s not hard, as long as you keep in mind a few simple rules. Best practices for women’s vaginal health include avoiding scented feminine hygiene products, changing out your menstrual products, exercising, and eating an overall healthy diet.
But if you’re curious about foods that are good for your vagina, you’ll be excited to know that there are a variety of foods to eat for vaginal health. A healthy vagina diet includes a lot of dark green leafy vegetables, sweet potatoes, apples and other complex carbohydrates, and probiotic-rich foods such as yogurt. All of the foods recommended for a healthy vagina are pretty easy and yummy to incorporate into your diet. Start eating yogurt as a light, delicious breakfast. Swap out regular potatoes for sweet potatoes, make sure you’re getting plenty of dark leafy greens, and grab a sweet, juicy apple for when you need a snack on the go.
No matter what you eat, make sure you’re drinking plenty of water, as water can help flush out any excess bacteria that might cause bacterial imbalances, which would prevent you from having a healthy vagina. Also make sure you’re getting enough sleep, getting enough exercise, and treating your body nicely overall. If you treat your body well and eat a good diet, you’re already doing the most important things for women’s vaginal health.
