[Printable Version of This Page]

5 Skin Friendly Foods

For healthy, younger looking skin, eat these 5 skin friendly foods …and avoid this one…

1. Sweet Potatoes

Beta-carotene, which makes these tubers orange, balances your skin's pH, helps combat dryness, and promotes cell turnover, all resulting in smoother skin.

2. Wild Salmon

The pigment that makes the fish pink, astaxanthin, is a powerful foe of free radicals, rogue molecules that damage cell membranes and DNA and cause skin to age. A study found that eating one serving every five days can prevent actinic keratoses—ugly rough patches that are precancerous.

3. Tomatoes

The fruit's red pigment, lycopene, is a potent antioxidant that shields skin from sun damage—like sunscreen, but from the inside out. Lycopene is highest in very red tomatoes; the antioxidant has a long list of benefits, from protecting skin against the sun's burning rays, to slowing arterial aging, to fighting heart disease, stroke, memory loss and impotence. To best absorb lycopene, eat tomatoes with olive oil.

4. Citrus Fruits

Vitamin C is essential to building collagen, a vital component of young-looking skin, which starts breaking down in your twenties. Citrus also contains bioflavonoids, which protect skin from UV rays and help prevent cell death.

5. Leafy Greens

Spinach, kale, and other greens contain lutein, which protects skin from sun-induced inflammation and wrinkles.

And to wash it all down…

Red wine contains skin-friendly grape-seed extract and resveratrol, two powerful antioxidants. Hops in beer, it turns out, may also offer antioxidant benefits.

Stay Away From White Foods

Need another reason to avoid white bread, pasta, rice, and other refined grain products? They're quickly broken down into the ultimate white food: sugar. Once in the bloodstream, sugar bonds with protein and creates advanced glycation end products (AGEs), which cause collagen to become inflamed and stiff, leading to wrinkles.

Health Library Archives