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Food for Thought: Feeding Your Beauty

by Organic Spa Magazine

Image Credit: CreditAlliance / shutterstock.com

Have you ever thought about how easy it would be if beauty came in a pill? Rather than wading through a sea of lotions, potions, serums and oils, and trying to figure out which is best for your unique skin, hair and nails, what if you could achieve your beauty goals with a supplement? An elixir? A meal plan?

We’re getting closer. Obviously, it’s nowhere near that simple, but there are supplements and foods that certainly can help promote thicker, healthier hair and firmer, softer, more supple skin. Food is beauty, I like to say, which is why I asked Jolene Hart, certified health coach and author of Eat Pretty and the new Eat Pretty, Live Well (Chronicle Books), what we should look for to feed our beauty from within.

OSM: Can beauty supplements help?

JH: Absolutely. Our skin, hair and nails are known to be some of the last places to receive nutrition in the body, and the first places to lose out when you have a nutrient deficiency. Supplementing is a good way to boost your nutrient intake when you know you’re not getting enough from your diet, or if there’s a specific nutrient that you need to target a beauty issue.

OSM: What nutrients do we need?

JH: This is actually kind of a trick question—we need all of them! It’s hard to prioritize one nutrient over another because they all work together to keep your body and beauty in top shape. Some of the top beauty nutrients are vitamins A, C, E and zinc.

OSM: In the bigger picture, what should we be looking for in a healthy beauty diet?

JH: My belief is that it’s always best to get your nutrition from your diet first. When you consume whole foods, their nutritional profile is such that it allows you to absorb and assimilate their nutrients optimally, in appropriate amounts and often paired with complementary nutrients.

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