Looking for another reason to eat the rainbow? How about clear, glowing skin? Eating the rainbow will make you more beautiful!
In a recent blog I mentioned three great reasons to eat the rainbow. First, it provides your body with essential vitamins, minerals, and nutrients it needs to function and fight off disease. Second, food effects your body on an energetic level. Third, food brings color and joy into your life.
The types of food you eat also affect the look, feel, and structure of our skin. In her book, Feed Your Face, doctor Jessica Wu explains that your skin communicates the state of your overall health by the way it looks.
If your liver is not functioning properly, you may have a yellow appearance, or jaundice. If your skin is pale, that too can be an indication of other medical problems due to lack of oxygen or anemia. If you notice an abundance of wrinkles it could be from excessive dieting or lack of collagen.
The foods you eat affect the functioning capabilities of ALL your organs and all your bodily functions. Food affects the ability of your liver to function properly and remove toxins. Food affects the ability of your body to make red blood cells and carry oxygen to all parts of your body. Food affects your ability to make collagen which gives your skin structure so it doesn’t appear saggy.
And it isn’t one single food that can do these things for you. It is a variety of foods that has these effects. This is why it is important to eat from the spectrum of rainbow colors to obtain optimal health and the cleanest, clearest, glowing skin. Eating the rainbow will make you more beautiful from the inside out.
As a teenager my father always told me that whatever was happening inside your body you could see it in your skin. And, he was right.
Your skin is one of your detoxification organs. It takes in nutrients from the foods you eat, assimilates what it needs for normal function (barrier) or healing (if you have a wound, bruise, blister, sunburn, etc), deposits byproducts and waste into the bloodstream for excretion, and regenerates new skin.
Like the microbiome in your gastrointestinal tract, your skin has its own unique microbiome (separate from that of your GI tract) of bacteria and flora that provide protection and immunity (you want a healthy microbiome on your skin!). And, just like the microbiome of your GI tract, the microbiome of the skin can fluctuate. Irritants (creams, lotions, or even hand sanitizer) can cause one type of bacteria to flourish in abundance while suppressing normal existence of other beneficial bacteria. This is called overgrowth or imbalance, and it affects the GI tract as well as the skin. Did you know the average woman is exposed to 120 chemicals on her skin before she leaves the house every morning? For men, the number is slightly less at 80 chemicals. And when touch your face in to move away a hair or soothe an itch or whatever the reason, you transfer bacteria from your hands to your face (great reason not to touch your face).
Although your skin has seven layers, it is highly sensitive. The foods you eat could be the difference between having clean skin and having clogged up, angry pores. You see, the fats you consume are incredibly important. Some fats, especially saturated fats, clog pores and wreak havoc on the glands that sit in lower layers of your skin. Other fats, unsaturated fats, are more viscous, creating healthy membranes in skin cells.
Fruits and vegetables are not only fat-free, they also contain water, an essential ingredient in keeping your skin hydrated. Some fruits and vegetables contain more water than others, for example watermelon or cucumber as opposed to pumpkin, and are better at hydrating the skin.
Furthermore, some fruits and vegetables contain a significant amount of vitamin C, a necessary ingredient for collagen production. Collagen gives your skin structure and makes it look younger and plumper (the reason why some people go to get filler injections).
So if you want clean, glowing skin, eating the rainbow of fruits and vegetables (and legumes, nuts, and seeds) will make you more beautiful and is your surest and most effective strategy in doing so.
