As promised as part of our continuing Whole Health and Wellness month, here’s a guest post on Beautifully Healthy Skin from the always wonderful and insightful Almost Vegetarian.

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When the gorgeous and talented Noel asked me to write a guest post, after the great post she wrote for Almost Vegetarian I knew I had to write something wonderful. So I decided to write about healthy foods for healthy skin. As in skin so healthy it is soft and radiant and age-defying.

Her blog is about beauty, my blog is about food. It was a natural.

So the first thing I did was some research to bulk up my food knowledge. And I learned two things. First, the cornerstone of beautifully healthy skin is a beautifully healthy diet. Without that, nothing else will help. And, second, in that healthy diet, there are some amazing foods that almost seemed designed to give you gorgeous skin for life.

So let’s start with the healthy diet. Then we’ll move on to the five best foods for beautifully healthy skin.

BEAUTY COMES FROM WITHIN

Beautiful skin is healthy skin. And healthy skin starts with a healthy diet, like this one.

Eat lots of different types of fruits and vegetables with side helpings of 100% whole wheat bread and other whole grains. Eat good fats, such as olive oil, and avoid bad fats, such as butter. Eat less protein than you think. Ditto dairy. Drink lots of water. Avoid processed food, which means avoiding almost everything in a sealed can or box or bag, because no body craves a good dose of preservatives and other chemicals. Ditto white bread and pasta and rice and sugar.

It’s that easy.

THE FIVE BEST FOODS FOR BEAUTIFULLY HEALTHY SKIN

Now that you are eating a healthy diet, it is easy to add foods that are especially good for your skin. These are the ones I like.

1. Green leafy vegetables, the darker green the better

Kale and spinach and romaine and all the dark green leafy stuff you can lay your hands on are loaded with Vitamin A. Vitamin A counteracts wrinkles. It also gives you healthy blood circulation which gives you gorgeous skin that just glows.

If you need a suggestion on which greens to your diet, the one I really like is kale. If you want some help, including the world’s easiest husband tested and approved recipe, there are tons of resources online including a post I wrote called “The great kale experiment.”

2. Blueberries

That gorgeous color is also the reason these berries are such good antioxidants. See, antioxidants fight free radicals. Free radicals are molecules. These molecules, among other things, can damage tissue. And you want to keep your tissue nice and healthy if you want to avoid premature aging.

I use fresh blueberries when they are locally available in my morning smoothie. In the winter, when local blueberries are not to be had, I use frozen. Now, I know I told you to avoid sealed bags, but flip that bag of frozen berries over and the best ones will have only one ingredient: Blueberries. So you’re good to go (in fact, a lot of frozen fruits and vegetables have great ingredient lists; just remember to read the list on the back, not the hype on the front to see what you are really buying).

3. Flax seeds

These wee beasties are loaded with ALA, an omega-3 fatty acid. The omega-3s are good fats. Good fats that battle early aging and help keep your skin looking pretty.

You can sprinkle flax seeds anywhere: On cereal, in your smoothie, on your sandwich, in your salad, on your vegetables, in your yogurt, on your partner, and so on. But before you go sprinkling crazy, I have two tips. First, to avoid the, shall we say, explosive side effects suddenly upping your fiber intake can cause, you need to start easy, say with no more than a generous pinch. Then take a week or two to work your way up to, oh, perhaps the level tablespoon I take daily. But, bear in mind, I’ve been eating flax seeds for years and, well, as a freelance writer, I work alone!

Second, you must grind your seeds in advance. Otherwise they, and all their wholesome goodness, will pass uselessly through your system. Whirr them in your blender for a few seconds or use a mortar and pestle and work out some frustration.

4. Olive oil

It tastes good, it is way better for you than butter, and it gives you the baby’s bottom skin you’ve always wanted. Really.

There are two things you need to know about olive oil. First, if you are going to cook with it, it has a fairly low smoking point. A smoking point is just what it sounds like: The point where an oil starts to smoke. When you hit the smoking point, two things happen. First, the oil can change flavor, and not for the better. And second, you may be entering carcinogenic territory. Now, I cook with olive oil all the time. But I use good pans that heat up nicely and evenly and retain heat and I keep my heat level to the mid-range or less. And I rarely hit the smoking point.

Second, if you want to give up butter but can’t stand to give up dessert, have I got a treat for you: A cake recipe that uses olive oil instead of butter. Brilliant, eh? It’s a lemon olive oil cake that’s moist and wonderful. I serve it with fresh blueberries.

5. Green tea

Remember those nasty free radicals we talked about earlier? Well, green tea helps fight them, too. This is on top of its helping to prevent cancer and heart disease and osteoporosis and . . . well, there are lots of reasons to drink green tea.

Now, for me, the problem with green tea is I am just not all that fond of it. So these days, I make my morning smoothie with half green tea and half soy milk s well as berries and yogurt and so on. It works, and tastes, like a dream.

IS THAT ALL THERE IS?

No, of course not. For example, I eat yogurt daily, try to fit in more exercise than simply taking Sophie (our 5-month old puppy) for her walks, I’m binging on apricots these days, I try to laugh as much as I can without seeming insane, I eat more tofu, I hug my husband a lot, and so on.

All of which help make me healthy. Which is good because there is nothing prettier than being healthy. Nothing at all.

Post from: Pretty by Nature

The idea behind it I discovered is that the act of heating foods above 116 degrees is said to break down vital enzymes that aid in digestion and absorption. We all know that an ideal diet should consist of foods as close to their natural state as possible, so this sort of makes sense to me. Sort of. It has many expected benefits including more energy, better digestion, weight loss, lower risk of heart disease. The one that caught my eye however was improved skin appearance. Way to play to my vanities.

The obvious question then becomes, well exactly what will I eat? Just like apples and uncooked spinach or something? Low and behold there are actually a lot of really yummy looking recipes. Check out this one for “lasagna”. Seriously. If that doesn’t look good to you then I may need to come to your house and have a talk. So who’s with me? I want takers. I mean it raise your hand. Everyone who is willing to try this with me please leave a comment. Or if you already subscribe to a raw food lifestyle, please share. Starting Thursday my diet will consist of at least 75% raw food. I’m really excited for this little experiment. Please try it with me and we can compare whose skin looks dewier. Oh and shhh…the hubs doesn’t know he’s doing it too. *Snort*

Post from: Pretty by Nature

Post from: Pretty by Nature