From “The Beauty Diet” by Lisa Drayer, MA, RD

My Top 10 Beauty Foods are packed with the powerful nutrients and micronutrients your body needs to keep your cells refreshed and in good repair. This chapter is all about giving your body the materials it needs helps keep you healthy, radiant, vibrant, and young. To have delicate, soft skin, thick, shiny hair, long, smooth fingernails, clear, bright eyes, and a brilliant, gleaming smile, you need to nourish your body from within. The more nutrient-rich foods you eat, the greater you feel and the better you look!

1. Wild Salmon

Salmon (especially the wild kind) is one of the healthiest foods you can eat. What’s even more exciting is that consuming the pink fish can enhance your beauty. I picked salmon for my Top 10 list because it is one of the best food sources of omega-3 fatty acids, those beneficial fats that enhance our health and appearance by fighting inflammation, keeping our cells supple, improving circulation, and helping our brains function optimally. Salmon is a beauty food because its nutrients play a key role in keeping the skin’s outer layer soft and smooth. The omega-3s in salmon reduce inflammation on the cellular level that can cause redness, wrinkles, and loss of firmness.

2. Low-Fat Yogurt

I’ve included low-fat yogurt in my Top 10 Beauty Foods because it is a terrific source of calcium, which is especially helpful if you want strong bones, beautiful nails, good posture, and a beautiful smile. One cup of plain, low-fat yogurt supplies about 450 milligrams of calcium. That’s more than the amount of calcium in a cup of fat-free milk, and it supplies close to half of your daily calcium needs. The beauty benefits of yogurt are not limited its calcium content, though. Eight ounces of yogurt has two grams of zinc, which is beneficial for your skin.

3. Oysters

The expression “the world is your oyster” suggests that oysters have a world of benefits tucked inside their shell. These little gifts from the sea are on my Top 10 list because they are the best whole-food source of zinc. People often think of oysters as an aphrodisiac, but the high zinc content of oysters is a great beauty benefit as this mineral is a major player in skin renewal and repair. It helps create collagen, which provides the structural support in skin. It also has antioxidant properties and has been shown to be a protective nutrient at the cellular level. Zinc helps maintain stronger nails, keeps the scalp and hair healthy, and helps protect eyes from vision problems. Zinc is highly concentrated in the retina, where it serves as a critical antioxidant and helps protects against eye-related diseases.

4. Blueberries

With their bright flavor and unmistakable blue hue, blueberries seem to be trying to catch our attention. Today the humble blueberry is experiencing a new level of popularity, not because it has a significant amount of any one vitamin or mineral but because of its unusual antioxidant profile. Researchers at a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) laboratory at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts, rank blueberries number one in antioxidant activity when compared to 40 common fresh fruits and vegetables. Blueberries contain many plant compounds that combine to make this sweet fruit an antioxidant superstar. I included blueberries in my Top 10 Beauty Foods because their antioxidant, antiaging, and anti-inflammatory effects protect you from premature aging.

5. Kiwifruit

Kiwifruit offers a rich nutritional reward in a small, delicious package. Inside of this small, brown, fuzzy fruit — about the size and shape of a very large egg — you’ll find semitranslucent green flesh and small black seeds around a white center. Kiwifruit has a unique sweet flavor something like a combination of strawberries, pineapples, and bananas. I’ve included kiwifruit among the Top 10 Beauty Foods because it offers more than just a tropical touch for your fruit salad: it has an unusually abundant amount of vitamin C and other antiaging antioxidants. Kiwifruit offers beauty benefits from stimulating collagen synthesis (vital to lovely skin) to maintaining healthy bones and teeth to protecting against wrinkles and premature aging. Because kiwis are antioxidant all-stars, they can help neutralize free radicals, which otherwise can cause damage to cells that could lead to inflammation, cancer , and heart disease.

6. Sweet Potatoes

The orange color of sweet potatoes gives their secret away. Sweet potatoes are on my list of Top 10 Beauty Foods because of their big boost of beauty-enhancing beta-carotene, a fat-soluble pigment found in many orange vegetables and fruits. It is a powerful antioxidant that protects our cells by destroying the free radicals that can damage cells (including skin cells) and cause age-related disorders. The body converts beta-carotene to vitamin A, which helps keep your skin smooth, so incorporating sweet potatoes into your diet can help you achieve wrinkle-free skin. Beta-carotene also may protect skin from the damage caused by sun exposure. One cup of cubed sweet potato contains a stunning 14,260 micrograms of beta-carotene.

7. Spinach

Spinach is a versatile, affordable, readily available, low-calorie leafy green vegetable that is loaded with beauty-enhancing nutrients. I included it in my Top 10 Beauty Foods because of its exceptional  lutein content, which keeps our eyes healthy and bright. Spinach also contains a significant amount of beta-carotene, as well as vitamin C, several B vitamins, magnesium, iron, calcium, potassium, zinc, dietary fiber, and even omega-3 fatty acids, making it a wonderfully nutrient-dense vegetable.

8. Tomatoes

I added tomatoes to my list of Top 10 Beauty Foods because they provide the greatest amount of the antiaging antioxidant lycopene, the bright red carotenoid pigment that gives tomatoes, watermelons, and pink grapefruit their distinctive color. Believe it or not, tomatoes are one food I encourage you to enjoy processed. The lycopene in tomatoes is actually more easily absorbed by the body after it is processed into juice, sauce, ketchup, or canned tomato puree. Ounce for ounce, the greatest source is canned tomato paste. It’s a great staple to keep in your pantry to add to soups or stews for an antioxidant boost.

9. Walnuts

Smooth skin tone, healthy hair, vibrant eyes, and strong bones can all be attributed to the dominant nutrients found in walnuts. I’ve included walnuts among my Top 10 Beauty Foods because they are the only type of nut that contains a significant amount of beauty-enhancing omega-3 fatty acids, plus they also provide vitamin E, a fat-soluble antioxidant that helps protect cells from free-radical damage and is associated with beautiful skin.

10. Dark Chocolate

Chocolate may be described as “sinfully delicious,” but in fact it is a heavenly food with many virtues. I’ve included dark chocolate on my list of Top 10 Beauty Foods because it is a treat for your skin as well as your taste buds. Scientific articles published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and other journals reveal that dark chocolate contains as many polyphenols as red wine and has potent antioxidant, antiaging properties. Chocolate contains many natural chemicals, including the beneficial flavonoids epicatechin and gallic acid, which are plant compounds that possess antioxidant properties.

Water

Drinking water keeps you slim, and if you are looking to lose weight, water can help you shed pounds. Water has zero calories, so choose it over soda or juice. Drink it before each meal and it will curb your appetite and make you feel full. Interestingly, research has revealed that water-rich foods like salads, vegetables, and soups can also help you lose weight. Consuming these foods before you eat helps you consume fewer calories overall during a meal.

Green Tea

Green tea is the only tea that contains a significant amount of the antioxidant epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). (Both green and black tea have about eight times the polyphenols found in fruits and vegetables, but green tea, unlike black and oolong tea, is not fermented, so the active ingredients remain unaltered.) This wonder nutrient hunts for cell-damaging free radicals in the body and detoxifies them. The potential health benefits of EGCG include improved cardiovascular health, enhanced weight loss, and protection from the damage caused by ultraviolet light. Increased consumption of green tea has been shown to reduce the risk of skin, breast, lung, colon, esophageal, and bladder cancers.

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