The old pearl of wisdom ‘you are what you eat has never been truer when it comes to skincare. Being the most exposed part of the body, your skin faces the brunt of environmental pollution, free radicals, and overexposure to harmful sun rays. To minimize their effects on your skin, you need to ensure that your skin’s resistance is optimal. This is why you need to know and understand that the secret to beautiful skin begins with nourishment from within.
There are plenty of healthy skincare foods that you can add to your diet. And with the right balance, you will be able to provide your skin with a steady supply of essential nutrients to keep it soft, supple, and blemish-free. It will also help your skin age naturally. While wrinkles and age spots are the result of skin aging, poor diet, and nutrition, overexposure to sun rays, use of chemical-based products, will only speed up the process. So, if you are told to eat a type of food for your skin to remain healthy and naturally supple, wouldn’t you want to give it a try?
The best way is to treat your skin kindly by increasing your nutrition intake if it’s on the lower end of the spectrum. Begin by eating antioxidant-rich fruits and vegetables, healthy fats, and a balanced diet. This should provide your skin with optimal levels of nutrients such as vitamins C and E, zinc, beta carotene, and selenium, all of which are essential for glowing skin.
Let’s have a look at some of these foods for healthy skin which you can include in your diet going forward.
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- Fatty Fish
If you are a non-vegetarian, you can go for fatty fish like salmon, mackerel, and herring, which are excellent sources of nutrients for healthy skin. Fatty fish are rich in omega-3 fatty acids that maintain the health of your skin.
The skin-related function of omega-3 fatty acids is to keep them thick, supple, and moisturized. In fact, a deficiency of omega-3 fatty acids can result in dry skin. Moreover, they help in reducing inflammation, which causes acne and redness and makes your skin less sensitive to the harmful UVA and UVB sun rays.
- Walnuts
Walnuts are rich in many nutrients and have characteristics that make them a great food for healthy skin. Walnuts are a good source of essential fatty acids – fats that your body cannot make on its own. They have the highest percentage of both omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids than most other nuts.
- Sweet Potatoes
Beta carotene is an essential nutrient found in foods such as carrots, oranges, spinach, and sweet potatoes. The beta carotene in sweet potatoes functions as provitamin-A, which simply means that it can be converted into vitamin A in your body.
- Tomatoes
Tomatoes are an excellent source of vitamin C and also contain all of the major carotenoids, including lycopene. In fact, lycopene, lutein, and beta carotene protect your skin against sun damage and help prevent wrinkling to a certain extent.
The carotenoid-rich tomatoes are great for maintaining healthy skin and can be paired with certain healthy sources of fat like olive oil or cheese. This is to ensure the carotenoids get absorbed properly by your body.
- Dark Chocolate
Nobody needs to be told twice to eat chocolate. And the reason is – that cocoa present in chocolate is quite effective in maintaining the health of your skin.
Certain studies have shown that the presence of antioxidants in cocoa helped a group of people experience thicker, hydrated skin. In addition to that, the skin also seemed less sensitive to exposure to sun rays, less scaly and rough, and also showed better blood flow thus providing essential nutrients to your skin.
Therefore, eating 20 grams of dark chocolate per day can help your skin look and feel more youthful as opposed to other types of chocolate which are generally low in antioxidants.
As you can see, if you watch what you eat, it will make all the difference in the world not just for the health of your body but also for your skin. So, make sure your body is getting its necessary share of essential nutrients which will in turn help protect your skin. These five foods listed above will work wonders for your skin and keep it healthy and glowing. Follow it up with a daily skin care regimen and you’re good to go.
