Protein

Once the main baddies were out of my diet I was able to home in on other things that affected my psoriasis. Excess protein fitted into this category.

Red meat did not give me as strong reactions as the other things but I did notice that if I ate beef for a few days in a row my skin deteriorated and if I ate chicken and fish, with no red meat for a few days, it improved. That led me to drop red meat from my diet and keep chicken and fish, prepared by grilling, baking or roasting.

Then I noticed that peanuts also aggravated my skin. I love peanuts in any form and used to eat loads of them coated in sugar, chocolate, honey roasted or salted. I had already found that excesses of chocolate were not good for me and had replaced the chocolate coated peanuts with carob coated. Somehow the carob was like a very poor cousin to the chocolate coated, so that did not work for long.

I know that we all need protein but it did seem that any excess of it was not doing me any good. I rationalised that protein builds cells and my skin was growing too fast, so the excess that I consumed above my normal body needs was going into my skin and aggravating my prosiasis. There is a good chance that my rationalisation was not accurate but it did help my psoriasis to reduce protein intake.

Since then I have got most of my protein from poultry and fish. I replaced beef with pork, which does not seem to affect me adversely. There are many ways to prepare those foods to make tasty and satisfying meals, so I have never really missed the beef. A nice T-bone or rump steak is nice but I haven't had one of those for a long time. Pork is generally more tender, so easier on the teeth and digestion.