Choose Foods That Help Maintain Your Beauty

A great smile, radiant hair, skin, and nails, and a slim figure can give you a sense of confidence. The beauty industry sells a wide range of products that promise eternal beauty, yet nothing makes you as beautiful on the outside as nourishing your body from the inside with a healthy diet. Along with using healthy self-care habits like brushing your teeth and washing your face, you can choose wholesome, healthy foods to help beautify your outside and make you healthier overall.

Steps

Creating a Beautiful Smile

1. Drink green tea. A study of Japanese men was done on the effect of green tea on gums. Drinking at least a cup of green tea once a day was shown to ward off gum disease. It may be because green tea contains the antioxidant catechin, which can help reduce inflammation.
   • Remember that green tea has caffeine, which can keep you up at night. Drink it earlier in the day if you find that's a problem for you.
   • Be aware that drinking too much green tea can have side effects, such as causing stomach discomfort or even an irregular heartbeat. You can sidestep some of these issues by drinking a caffeine-free version.
2. Skip citrus juices. The acid in citrus juices can wreak havoc on your teeth, breaking down the enamel over time. Grapefruit and lemon juice are two of the worst culprits, and soda can also be a problem.
   • If you still want to drink these juices, try using a straw and then rinsing or brushing your teeth immediately afterwards. A straw will protect the teeth in the front of your mouth to some extent, and the water will help rinse away the acid in the back of your mouth.
   • In addition, skip swishing. If you tend to swish soda or juice around your mouth, you should get into the habit of swallowing more promptly. The longer you hold soda in your mouth, the more damage it can do.
3. Pick foods by texture. Foods that are harder to break down, such as crunchy or chewy foods, increase the saliva in your mouth. That saliva is essential to keeping your mouth healthy, as it reduces the amount of acid in your mouth that is created by bacteria. In addition, these types of crunchy foods help remove plaque from your teeth.
   • The acid leads to cavities, which is why it's important to keep the acid level down. Try foods such as carrots, apples, or nuts.
   • However, stay away from sticky, chewy candy. Their stickiness allows the sugar to hang around in the mouth for longer, encouraging the bacteria to create more acid. You should also try to avoid snacks like potato chips and cookies, which can be even worse for your teeth because they stick around for even longer.
4. Have a cheddar dessert. Eating a bit of hard cheese, such as cheddar, after dinner can help reduce the acid in your mouth. It also has a protein called casein, that protein, along with the calcium and phosphate cheese also provides, can help protect your teeth against cavities. Cheese also increases saliva flow, helping to wash away acids and sugars. Other hard cheeses include Parmesan, Colby, and Gouda.
5. Drink water. Water can help wash away the bacteria and acids that plague your teeth. Try drinking some after every meal. In addition, if your mouth stays too dry, it can increase cavities.
   • Be sure to limit dark drinks like coffee, soda, and red wine that stain teeth.

Making Skin, Nails, and Hair Beautiful

1. Focus on colorful produce. Fruits and vegetables in red and orange can help keep your skin beautiful. Try orange and yellow bell peppers, carrots, apricots, sweet potatoes, and yellow squash, for instance. They are high in antioxidants, protecting you against the effects of age.
   • Tomatoes and blueberries are also high in antioxidants.
   • Some of these foods, such as carrots and sweet potatoes, also contain vitamin A, which can also keep your skin healthy and beautiful. Other good sources of vitamin A include lean meats and dairy products.
2. Eat your leafy greens. Leafy green vegetables, such as kale, broccoli, spinach, or collard greens, should be a regular part of your diet anyway, because they are nutritious on so many levels. But they are also great for your skin, given the amount of antioxidants they contain. They are also a good source of Vitamin A, iron, beta carotene, folate, and vitamin C. Maintaining appropriate levels of these nutrients will help hair and scalp healthy. B vitamins are important for keeping your skin healthy.
3. Make strawberries a part of your diet. Strawberries are high in vitamin C. Vitamin C is essential for many bodily functions, and it also helps build up collagen, reducing the chance of wrinkles in your skin.
   • Try eating 1/2 a cup a day, which provides half of your daily required vitamin C.
   • Other fruits high in vitamin C include citrus fruits such as grapefruit, oranges, and lemons. Others include Kiwi, mangoes, cantaloupe, and watermelon.
4. Add olive oil and other healthy fats to your diet. It is important to include these fats to increase consumption of omega-3 fatty acids. Healthy fats, such as polyunsaturated fats and monounsaturated fats, can help keep your skin younger-looking and more supple. Additionally, they are essential to helping your body take in other nutrients, such as vitamin A and E, that help keep your skin healthy.
   • Some healthy fats include canola oil, olive oil, soybean oil, safflower and sunflower oils. Try cooking with these oils or adding them to salad dressing.
   • If you'd prefer to eat your fats in solid form, try eating fatty fish such as salmon, or nuts, avocados, and seeds.
   • Decrease your consumption of omega-6 fatty acids because they compete with omega-3 fatty acids in the body. Examples of these foods include vegetable oils such as corn oil, sesame oil, sunflower oil, and walnut oil.
5. Try edamame as a snack. Edamame is a healthy snack, rich in protein. In addition, the isoflavones in it are thought to help preserve collagen, keeping your skin looking young.
   • You can find edamame at most grocery stores in the freezer sections. You can steam a handful at a time in the microwave for a quick afternoon snack.
   • Remember, you don't eat the outside shell, just the beans inside, though you can find it already shelled to add to salads.
6. Determine-How-Much-Protein-You-Need. You hair, nails, and skin are built with the keratin from protein. In fact, your hair may go into stasis by not growing if you aren't getting enough.
   • Pick foods rich in protein, such as fish, milk, eggs, and beans. For instance, meat has 7 grams of protein per ounce. Eggs are also a great source of biotin, which can strengthen brittle nails. If you're deficient in biotin, you may experience hair loss.
   • Meat is also a good source of iron, and your hair needs iron to stay thick and healthy.
7. Include fish in your diet for longer, shinier hair. Fish have omega-3 fatty acids that help your hair grow. Choose fish that contain high amounts of omega-3 fatty acids, such as mackerel, tuna, or sardines. Other good choices include fatty fish such as catfish, halibut, salmon, striped sea bass, and albacore tuna. These fish will also help add shine. Make sure to eat fish at least 2 times per week.
   • Instead of fish, you can eat walnuts, canola oil, or tofu, all of which are also high in omega-3 fatty acids.
8. Protect your skin from burning with tomatoes and apples. Apples contain quercetin, which can help stave off the harmful parts of the sun's rays that cause skin cancer. Eat Golden Delicious, Cortland, or Monroe for the highest benefit. Tomatoes have lycopene, which has been shown to increase your skin's protection from the sun, especially if you eat it in a concentrated, cooked form, such as tomato paste. Remember, it's still important to wear sunscreen and always use a moisturizer with sunscreen to protect your skin from the sun.

Maintaining Your Weight

1. Try half an avocado at lunch. The healthy fats in avocado can help you stave off hunger. As a result, you'll be less likely to snack in the afternoon. However, you still need to pay attention to how much avocado you eat, as they are high in fat, and therefore high in calories.
2. Eat soup. Soups and stews contain more liquid than other foods. Therefore, you fill up faster and stay fuller for longer while consuming fewer calories.
   • Make sure that you choose broth-based soups, not cream-based soups.
3. Increase lean protein in your diet. Lean protein is one of the most effective foods for keeping you from being hungry. Try eating fish or chicken or vegetable-based proteins such as lentils or beans. Start your day off with protein to feel fuller throughout the day. Try eating boiled eggs or Greek yogurt for breakfast.
4. Include rye bread to help with satiety. Whole grain is always best, but when trying to decide between these two whole grains, you might consider choosing rye bread now and then. This grain has been shown to naturally suppress your appetite, and it's even being made into foods such as pasta and oatmeal.

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Sources and Citations

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