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Want that perfect complexion without having to cake on the makeup, or spend half your wages on expensive ‘wonder potions’ that promise to rid you of wrinkles and worries? Start with what does inside your body, rather than outside. New trends and lotions pop up all the time, but if you want a solution rather than a quick fix, try and incorporate these fantastic fruits into your diet.
• Strawberries: A classic fruit, perfect for cooling down in the upcoming summer, my favourite berry is packed full of nutritional goodness. Add them to cereals, dunk them in sour cream – the combinations of food that go with strawberries seem endless. Sweet, with a delicious hint of sourness, they’re relatively low in carbs and calories and are exceptional ‘on the go’ snacks. High in vitamin C, strawberries – like most berries if truth be told – are rich in antioxidants, compounds that neutralize free radicals in the body: nasty loose molecules that can cause damage to our cells and helps us age. I eat these bad boys almost every day, and I don’t think I’ve had a pimple in over a year.
• Papaya: If truth be told, I am not a huge fan of this tropical fruit. Too many memories as a kid being force fed this meaty substance, put off by the shiny black dots that gleamed up at me like the dead eyes of a doll. This being said, it’s staple food back home in Brazil. Mother always said it was kept her skin from sagging, and at fifty plus, it has clearly worked for her. And here’s why. Filled with flavonoids, potassium, magnesium, beta-carotene, and the essential vitamin C, this fruit is a great source of all things linked with maintaining corporal form and shape. Your collagen cells will thank you for this, trust me.
• Avocado: Also known as the best fruit in the world! I used to think they taste like soap, but ever since returning back home to Dubai, I’ve been stuck on them like white on rice. I can’t go a week without incorporating it into my diet. Spread it on some bread, mix it with some lemon or have it plain. The result’s the same: pure satisfaction. Low in carbs (great for anyone on Atkins or protein-heavy diets), they’re more savory than sweet and are high in monounsaturated fat. Fat? Oh no, not fat. Wrong. This is the good fat. If you ever need proof that fat is good for the skin, go look at people with exceedingly low body fat. Most of them have wrinkles, dry skin and appear older than they actually are. Fat, and monounsaturated fat in particular, are great because the moisturize the skin, replace the oil that gets removed when washing, and are also filled with vitamin D Because they’re more savory than sweet, avocados are often confused as a vegetable. But these green orbs are actually a fruit, one of a tropical nature like papaya. The key to an avocado’s benefit to skin cells are the high levels of monounsaturated fat, considered a “good” fat. Monounsaturated fats help moisturize skin, replace oil that gets removed when washing and is responsible for enhancing intestinal absorption of calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphate and zinc.
• Plum: Anything red or purple is an indicator that they are high in antioxidants. The same goes for these delectable fruits. Like the strawberry, these fruits have been shown to have a high amount of antioxidants per serving, and not only that, are high in fiber. As well as helping rid the body of harmful toxins by assisting them along their way through the digestive tract, fiber helps you feel full longer, and is great for anyone hoping to curb unnecessary hunger pangs.
• Tomatoes: The final fruit on our list comes in a number of shapes and sizes, and for a long time in my book, was thought of as a vegetable! This red fruit is packed with a cartenoid called lycopene. In a study published in the European Journal of Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics, researchers gave twenty-five young adults a lycopene rich diet for four weeks followed by a 25 milligram lycopene supplement for another three months. A the end of the four month period, they looked at the participant’s skin using spectroscopy and found they had higher levels of carotenoids, including lycopene and beta-carotene, in their skin. Carotenoids are strong antioxidants that help to reduce inflammation – which may have a positive impact on skin aging. A previous study published in the same journal found that higher skin lycopene levels were associated with smoother skin. Moreover, when skin levels of lycopenes are higher, it helps to reduce oxidative damage that occurs from daily exposure to the sun and other environmental pollutants. As a study showed, higher levels of skin lycopenes reduces skin roughness. Higher levels of lycopene in the skin also block ultraviolet rays to some degree – although not enough to make a sunscreen unnecessary. [thanks, Tranquil Infusion Skin Care]
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