What to Eat to Support a Healthy Vaginal pH Level
Maintaining a healthy pH level is important for female health. Here you'll find 5 ingredients to help maintain good levels.
What is a Vaginal pH Level?
pH is the measurement of how acidic or alkaline a substance is. Vaginal pH is the level of your vagina and it plays an important role in reflecting its health. Overall, the scale runs from 0 to 14, less than 7 being considered acidic while more than 7 is alkaline or basic.
Something often not shared in health class is that a vagina’s pH is not a part of the “self-cleaning” process. Instead, vaginal pH is often affected by the clothes we wear, unprotected sex, and, perhaps most importantly, the foods we eat.
A balanced vaginal pH needs to stay in the range from 3.8-4.5, this is relatively acidic. These numbers can also be affected by age, whether you are in your reproductive days or going through menopause. Our pH influxes throughout the day, but if it strays outside our normal balance for too long unhealthy bacteria might form and that is when strange odors, yeast infections, or UTI’s come about.
Things that can throw off vaginal pH include:
- Unprotected sex
- Antibiotics
- Douching
- Menstrual periods
Signs or symptoms that you have an unbalanced pH include:
- Fishy smell
- Unusual white, gray, or green discharge
- Vaginal itching
- Burning while peeing
Food plays a major role in helping balance our vaginal pH, which in turn can help ward against vaginal health issues. Below, we’ve outlined some of the top ingredients to integrate into your diet to help cultivate a healthy vaginal pH. It’s important to remember that while food can help maintain or balance a pH, always consult with your OB-GYN if you have any concerns about your pH or vaginal health.
Water
This one is not a food per se, but it’s important to help maintain pH levels in women. Always make sure to drink plenty of water throughout the day (not just all at once) to help your body function properly in multiple ways, including help keep your pH in tip-top shape.
Staying hydrated can help our body maintain a good pH when we consume food or drinks that don’t support a healthy vaginal pH level. For example, eating high amounts of sugar or drinking a lot of alcohol can adversely affect your pH level, but water can help slightly counteract that damage.
Cranberries
Now, when we say cranberries we don’t mean the mushed down, sugar-rich option. When using cranberries to help balance pH, or to help with a UTI, grab fresh cranberries or 100% cranberry juice. It’s full of antioxidants and acidic compounds which can help fight infections (aka what helps bacteria from adhering to the bladder wall). If you accidentally grab a cranberry juice full of sugar, it might have the opposite effect!
If you can’t stand the bitterness of 100% cranberry juice, try adding it to some sparkling water to dilute it. You can also put it in your smoothies or take a cranberry pill if you can’t handle the taste.
Probiotics
We recently published our article "Probiotic-Rich Foods" where we go over some great recipes and foods to add to your daily diet to help build this “good bacteria” we keep mentioning.
The following foods in particular can be helpful in preventing yeast infections or other infections.
- Yogurt and Kefir
- Kimchi and Sauerkraut
- Pickles
- Tempeh
- Kombucha
In regards to yogurt, kefir, or kombucha, remember to double-check the sugar content. Choosing plain yogurt or kefir is a great way to make sure there is less added sugar in your calcium-rich food. Overall, kombucha is usually rather high in sugar, so it’s best to dilute it with water or look for a variety that is lower in sugar.
Prebiotics
Foods rich in prebiotic compounds can help maintain a pH by helping grow healthy bacteria. If you have IBS or other stomach issues, be aware that prebiotics might inflame your condition.
Some foods rich in prebiotics include:
- Leeks and onions
- Asparagus and Jerusalem artichokes
- Garlic
- Whole-wheat products
- Oats
- Soybeans
- Bananas
Garlic
Garlic is known to be antimicrobial and some claim that eating it raw can help fight yeast infections. Garlic is an easy ingredient to add to many savory meals to gain microbial effects.
Overall, maintaining a healthy and balanced diet can help maintain overall pH. However, when you might feel your pH might be getting out of whack these four foods and water are a great source of help.
Foods that negatively affect your pH are diets high in sugar, processed foods, meat/diary with a lot of preservatives, and alcohol. These foods throw off the bacteria that helps keep pH levels and gut health in good standing.
