Last time, I wrote about key skincare ingredients to help you look radiant. While applying the right products to our skin is important, equally important is what we eat. Our epidermis is built from within and the creation of our skin cells is dramatically affected by what we put into our bodies.
Perhaps you’ve experienced a breakout or redness the morning after the night before. While this immediate impact may help you make better dietary choices in the future, it’s also important to know that eating some foods may not show on your skin immediately, but lasting impact is happening internally.
We all need to enjoy a treat now and then though and applying the 80 / 20 rule to your diet allows room for this. With this in mind, I wanted to highlight a few ingredients you should always try to avoid. And those you should seek to make a regular part of your food consumption.
Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way first.
Sugar
While there is nothing like a sugar rush when you need a pick me up, in addition to health impacts such as weight gain and diabetes, sugar causes wrinkles. Consuming foods with added sugar or starchy carbohydrates, which are converted to sugar, causes glycation and speeds up the ageing process.
What is glycation? When our body is confronted with excess sugar, it loves to bind to our collagen and elastin. The result is that the proteins bend and stiffen in an unnatural formation. This means they can’t do their work to keep our skin firm and bouncy, causing premature wrinkles, sagging and slower cell turnover.
Excess sugar also causes inflammation throughout the body, which can worsen rosacea and rashes while increasing the skin’s oil production, leading to breakouts. Inflammation also impairs the skin’s natural ability to heal itself, degrades its thickness and accelerates ageing.
If you are indulging in something that’s got a lot of sugar or white flour in it, try to add a bit of protein to balance it out. Add a hard-boiled egg alongside pancakes, almonds with raisins, nut butter on bread.
Saturated and trans fats
For many of us, avoiding fat is something we do almost without thinking about it. But all fats aren’t created equal. I’ll talk about those that can benefit your body below.
What should remain firmly on your avoid list though are saturated and trans fats, which cause inflammation and accelerate the ageing process. Saturated fats can be found in fatty cuts of protein as well as cheese. Trans fats are modified plant oils usually found in processed foods and fried foods. You’ll find these in ingredient lists with the descriptors hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated.
Salt
No doubt you think about your usage of salt in relation to blood pressure. Where skin and ageing are concerned though, salt is also a factor as it can cause the body to retain water.
If you have any tendency for bags under your eyes, salt will increase their size and encourage your eyelids to puff. Use fresh herbs and spices to add flavour to your meal rather than a liberal shake of salt.
Ok, so what is good for you? Plenty!!!
Antioxidants
As with skincare ingredients, antioxidants that you consume are great for fighting the ageing process. They combat free radicals to prevent cell damage, stimulate collagen and elastin production and reduce inflammation.
To get the benefit of antioxidants, your diet should be rich in Vitamins A, C and E, which come from foods such as these.
Carotenoids are also a great antioxidant. They contain lycopene, primarily found in red fruits and vegetables like tomatoes, red peppers and watermelon. Lycopene has been shown to be effective in reversing skin damage as well as helping to prevent sunburn.
Carotenoids also contain lutein and zexanthin, which are critical for eye health and maintaining the structure of our skin. These can be found primarily in cooked, green leafy vegetables as well as courgettes or zucchini, egg yolks and orange peppers.
And don’t forget, you can get antioxidants from green tea, dark chocolate (at least 70 per cent, to avoid excess sugar) and red wine. Just be sure to enjoy the last two in moderation.
Mono and poly-unsaturated fats
As promised, there are fats you should include in your diet, particularly as fat is a key component for imparting flavour to food as well as helping you feel satiated.
Fat from olive oil (instead of butter), avocados and flaxseed are just a few of the foods with good fats, which help to moisturise the skin and reduce inflammation.
When choosing fat for your diet, you want to add food with monounsaturated or poly-unsaturated (also known as Omega-3 fatty acid) fats. Here are a selection of foods rich in these.
Aiming to eat fish three times a week is a great goal to easily boost these fats. And walnuts and a bit of nut butter are great additions to morning oatmeal, for a healthy addition of fat.
Zinc
The last item to you should ensure your diet contains is the mineral, zinc. It boosts collagen turnover and improves skin’s rejuvenation rate. Fish high in omega-3 fatty acid is generally a good source of zinc. Other food options include: cashews, chickpeas, lentils, quinoa and spinach.
I do appreciate that it can be difficult to say no to our favourite foods and on special occasions, who doesn't want to splurge? Hopefully with a better understanding of how some standard ingredients can affect the ageing process, you’ll be able to make the right choices for your skin (and health) the majority of the time.
What are your favourite health-boosting foods? What do you save for a special indulgence?