You are what you eat – this is a sentence that truly makes sense once you start paying attention to the way food affects your mind and body. However, even with this awareness, people generally tend to disregard the way food affects their tattoo and its healing process. Some don’t even think about the connection, which can probably be the reason why people experience prolonged tattoo healing, inflammations, and other side effects of improper nutrition.

However, if you’re reading this, you’ve done the first step; this is a sign you want to be informed about proper nutrition during the tattoo aftercare. And, you’re also at the right place; in the following paragraphs, we’ll talk about how food affects your tattoo, and which foods and ingredients you should completely avoid until your tattoo is healed. So, without further ado, let’s dive right in!

How Food Affects Your Tattoo: Everything You Need To Know

Alongside air and water, food is one of the most essential things we need for survival. However, certain foods can either help us, provide proper nutrition and keep us healthy, while other food groups tend to do the very opposite. Even when we are sick, some foods provide comfort and soothe the pain, while others prolong the agony and make us feel even worse. The same applies to the case of tattoo aftermath.

It is important we finally understand that new, fresh tattoos act like open wounds (not as a wound as we would imagine, but still a wound), and that is how the body treats them. As such, the body transfers all the energy towards the ‘wounded area’ to help it heal as fast as possible. The longer the healing process, the higher the chance of infection, and your body knows that.

So, by eating certain foods, you can either help your body do the job quickly and efficiently or make this job even harder by not providing additional energy and nutrients. But, this is a pretty simplistic explanation; let’s see how exactly food affects your tattoo!