The “external” approach:
The belief has always been that in addition to expensive plastic surgery (Botox included), topical beauty products were the only options to help you with your beauty regimen and maintain the health of your skin. Statistics prove that both men and women spend an exorbitant amount on a variety of creams, serums and lotions aimed at achieving that “great” look and for ageless, flawless skin.
The only time “food” was ever mentioned as a beauty product, was when someone was giving advice to mash up food into a bowl to apply topically to your face in an effort to rejuvenate your skin. But recent clinical research into the relevance of food is turning conventional knowledge on its head. Instead of the benefits from external applications, the study claims more benefits from food from the inside, through regular consumption. Curious but skeptical? Read on.
Hydration- Key to Healthy Skin:
The key to “food for skin” lies in the abundant water content in most fruits and vegetables, providing nourishment and hydration for critical body functions, especially related to skin health. Dehydrated skin tends to develop a raisin like appearance (wrinkly), look flaky or dried out and forcing you to look older than your true years. Along with your daily quota of 8 to 12, 8 ounce, glasses per day, munching on fresh seasonal fruits and vegetables will do wonders for your satiety and overall health. It’s the elixir to good skin.
Skin Food: Nutrients that Matter
Nature’s beauty product is found in the vitamins, minerals, and fatty acids that help with the health of your skin. These include omega-3, zinc, and vitamins A, C, E and Sulphur which is critical to collagen production. Omega-3 fatty acids top the list providing protection from free radicals and inflammatory ill effects. Olive oil, avocados and its oil, tuna, and salmon are great to get the omega-3 that your skin craves. Examples of sulphur rich foods are green and black olives, fresh cucumbers and celery stalks. Working together with the sulfur, vegetables that are rich in Vitamin A help keep collagen levels high. Carrots and sweet potatoes are great foods to consume to obtain vitamin A.
We all know that the more freely blood circulates and energizes the nooks and corners of our body, the better our health. Blockades due to plague and other physical causes, hampers the blood’s effectiveness to nourish, repair, and detoxify body cells leading to imbalances and quick degeneration. It also carries vital oxygen that aids overall cell growth including the dermis. Zinc rich foods help the body implement this vital function. Cooked oysters, meat, spinach, toasted wheat germ, seeds like pumpkin, and nuts like cashews, almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts, pecans, and pine nuts provided the much needed zinc to help nourish and replenish the skin cells.
Eating meat and seafood makes zinc more bio-available, meaning it is easier and readily absorbed by your body. On the other hand, vegetarian sources of zinc, like whole grains, are high in phytates, which reduce zinc absorption. If you can’t afford seafood, or want to eat less meat, then eat more eggs, which have zinc that the body readily absorbs.
Eat Right to Look Bright:
Citric fruits like oranges and grapefruits are rich in Vitamin C, which prevents sagging of the skin and keeps it healthy. Recent medical reports have noted that the body does not store vitamin C, so eating a fruit with vitamin C every four hours while awake, is the best way to feed your skin what it needs to stay supple, firm, healthy and youthful.
Whatever skin issues you have – whether it’s acne, wrinkles, dry or oily skin – you can find your beauty product in the foods you eat, which in turn will help feed your body’s largest organ internally, so that it delivers the results you want on the outside of your body.
