What less-obvious diet improvements worked for you to improve your hair strength?

[Fimu]

We all know that limiting processed foods and drinks could improve for the hair/scalp quality, but there are many folks (like teenage girls) who still manage to grow long hair with healthy ends despite eating processed foods and beverages regularly.

So I wonder: what less obvious diet improvements worked for you to improve your hair growth quality in the long run? I'm curious what the role of the gut health is for the cuticle health.

Examples: cutting out dairy and/or gluten, stopping drinking coffee/certain teas, switching to vegetarian/vegan/meat/fish, eliminating certain healthy unprocessed foods that were bad for your gut.

[Chromis]

Exact opposite of you. Getting plenty of high quality saturated fat in my diet really, really helps my skin and scalp. I can really see the difference if my diet has been too lean, my scalp and skin go itchy and super dry. I also cannot absorb enough iron without eating meat, and in fact I have a bit of liver with my brekkie every morning in the form of a slice of liverwurst or pate. We do eat lots of veg, don't get me wrong, but we avoid vegetable oils like canola, corn, and soy.

[Fimu]

Exact opposite of you. Getting plenty of high quality saturated fat in my diet really, really helps my skin and scalp. I can really see the difference if my diet has been too lean, my scalp and skin go itchy and super dry. I also cannot absorb enough iron without eating meat, and in fact I have a bit of liver with my brekkie every morning in the form of a slice of liverwurst or pate. We do eat lots of veg, don't get me wrong, but we avoid vegetable oils like canola, corn, and soy.

Interesting! I must say my nails have been much stronger since I incorporated more saturated fat (I cook with clarified butter) in my vegetarian/pescetarian diet, so that was for me a sign my iron levels were recovering. Especially in fall and winter, my body benefits from eating more healthy fats. I should eat fish way more frequently, though.

[olivetime]

Healing my gut with the GAPS diet and then basically eating a carnivorous diet, high in animal fats. I also cured my chronic anemia, nicer hair and nails was a wonderful plus!

(I still eat veggies, but its more for fun/variety...I like to grow them!)

[olivetime]

Exact opposite of you. Getting plenty of high quality saturated fat in my diet really, really helps my skin and scalp. I can really see the difference if my diet has been too lean, my scalp and skin go itchy and super dry. I also cannot absorb enough iron without eating meat, and in fact I have a bit of liver with my brekkie every morning in the form of a slice of liverwurst or pate. We do eat lots of veg, don't get me wrong, but we avoid vegetable oils like canola, corn, and soy.

Yeah, Liver!!!! I get so excited when I see other people eating organ meats, haha! *High five*

[xanthochromia]

I think the most important dietary thing is to make sure that you are healthy first -- a lot of conditions are underdiagnosed and people may not realize how sick they are! After being diagnosed with celiac in early adulthood (I didn't think I had a "real disease" because I thought I wasn't that sick and I assumed incorrectly that it would have been diagnosed earlier if I did), I obviously cut out gluten and then supplemented Vitamin D and B12 due to bloodwork showing deficiencies. My hair increased from a solid i to a small ii and my nails actually started to grow a bit. My acne also improved tremendously, presumably from having less systemic inflammation.

So for me, my less-obvious diet change was eating gluten-free, though obviously that doesn't apply to everyone! The important thing was to not assume that I was healthy just because I wasn't so sick that I couldn't function at all.

[Chromis]

Yeah, Liver!!!! I get so excited when I see other people eating organ meats, haha! *High five*

I eat all the parts! Or rather, make sure all the parts get eaten in a couple of cases. I am not a fan of kidneys, so we smoked them and cut them up into cat treats. We have very spoiled cats! If we aren't raising them ourself, we generally buy whole or half animals, so I always request to keep all the fun bits. Often I get extras since others don't always want them.

My husband turned out to be one of those "gluten people" he always made fun of, so we don't have bread or pasta in the house. It made a big difference for him, but none for me. I still happily buy treats from the farmer's market or if I happen to be near a bakery, but very rarely bake them now. We mostly eat meat, dairy, and vegetables with fruit as treats. He can't have much sugar so he will cut an orange or an apple in half to share.