Eat Your Way to Natural Beauty

Blueberry

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Sometimes beauty doesn’t need a topical solution like a cream or cosmetic; sometimes it just needs some good food. I published an article on Ezine Articles sometime ago on this topic. It explores exactly what you need to eat to get and keep beautiful skin. Take a look and see if you’re including these foods in your diet.

Healthy Skin – The Top 5 Foods to Get It

Your skin is the indicator of your health. You may love expensive creams and lotions, and they may help the appearance of your skin, but outside treatments can’t cure problems (e.g., acne, wrinkles, dryness) caused by nutritional deficiencies. Eating the right foods – and avoiding the wrong ones – is the safe and effective way to truly beautiful skin.

Save your money and try these foods. They are five of the top healing foods for solving a host of skin problems, and they can help your skin look its best.

1. Green Tea

Antioxidants reduce inflammation and protect cell membranes, and green tea is full of them. Green tea can even help reduce the risk of skin cancer by reducing sunburn damage, and it’s full of polyphenols that eliminate cancer-causing free radicals.. Those same polyphenols reactivate dying skin cells.

2. Salmon

Salmon, other fatty fish, walnuts, and flaxseed are high in fatty acids which are key for healthy skin. Essential fatty acids like omega-3 help cell membranes by protecting them from harmful substances, allowing nutrients in, and allowing waste products out as well as helping to reduce the production of inflammatory agents that can cause skin damage.

The result of consuming enough of the right fatty acids is smooth, supple skin, but unfortunately the typical American diet doesn’t include enough. The goal ratio of omega-6 fatty acids to omega-3 fatty acids is 1:1, but our diet’s ratio is usually closer to 20:1. Eating more salmon (and other oily fish) can help.

3. Blueberries

Everywhere you look these days, there seems to be news about blueberries… and there’s a reason. Many experts consider them to be the best source of antioxidants. These antioxidants along with the phytochemicals in blueberries neutralize the free radicals which cause skin damage. Less skin damage means younger looking skin.

4. Carrots

Healthy skin needs vitamin A for maintaining its cells (too little vitamin A can lead to dry skin), and carrots are where you can find it. Carrots also have those all-important antioxidants.

5. Water

If you really want to keep your skin healthy and young-looking, you need to drink plenty of water. And the water in coffee, tea, and colas (caffeinated beverages) doesn’t count. Same goes for water in sweet drinks (e.g., regular soft drinks). You need pure, clean water to rejuvenate your skin’s cells; it hydrates them and helps them eliminate toxins.

While you’re consuming all these healthy foods, you should avoid some others. Stay away from sugar, white flour, and saturated fats. Fried foods. are especially bad since they can actually cause acne and other skin conditions by trapping oil and bacteria beneath the skin.

You are what you eat. And if you eat the good foods listed here (and avoid some of the not-so-good ones), you and your skin should be healthy and beautiful.

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