Best Vegan Foods for Cold Sores

Anyone who’s had a cold sore knows what a pain they are! It’s really important to eat a diet with a good lysine to arginine ratio, and unfortunately a lot of foods that vegans eat are higher in arginine than lysine, which can bring out cold sores.

All of the arginine / lysine ratio lists online also include animal products, making them hard to use as a reference. So we decided to create a vegan list!

If you are very prone to cold sores, or just feel one coming on, be sure to eat mostly the foods in the top half of the list, and go easy on the ones at the bottom. Nuts, seeds, coconut and chocolate are some of the worst foods to eat when you have a cold sore, so just minimize them for a while when you get one. You can also take a lysine supplement to balance out the arginine.

Download the list below. If we’ve missed any foods, let us know and we’ll add them!