Your body produces sweat from the eccrine and apocrine glands. Eccrine glands produce most of the salty sweat that cools your body. The Mayo Clinic notes that body odor arises due to the apocrine glands, which secrete a fatty sweat in areas with abundant hair, including your scalp, armpits and groin. This sweat removes toxins from your body, including those generated through the foods you eat, and can develop an odor when it comes in contact with bacteria present on your skin. Changing the foods you eat can change the odors your body produces.
White Meat
Eating white meat, such as chicken or fish, instead of red meat might produce less body odor. A study published in the October 2006 journal Chemical Senses concluded that consuming red meat, including beef and pork, can have a negative effect on body odor when compared to diets that do not contain red meat.
Two groups of male study participants consumed specific diets for two weeks, one containing red meat and the other with no red meat. At the end of the two week period, 30 women rated odor samples collected from both groups and found samples from the "no red meat" group less intense, more pleasant and more attractive. To confirm these results, each group ate the opposite diet one month later; for example, the original "red meat" group ate the diet with no red meat. The raters again found odors from the group that ate no red meat less intense, more pleasant and more attractive.
Vegetables
Oregon State University states that a fishy body odor is associated with eating foods that contain high levels of choline, an essential nutrient. The Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine recommends that men consume no more than 550 mg of choline per day, and women consume no more than 425 mg per day.
Vegetables are generally low in choline and eating a diet rich in cooked and fresh vegetable can help reduce body odor. The United States Department of Agriculture provides a list of food choline content. While most vegetables contain low amounts of choline, vegetables with the lowest levels include kale, carrots, cucumber, squash, tomatoes, radishes, lettuces, raw cabbage and cucumbers.
Fruit
Fruit is another food that is low in choline and can help eliminate body odor. Apples, strawberries, pears, orange juice, grape juice, pineapple, bananas, blueberries and watermelon contain some of the lowest levels of choline.
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