December 3, 2010

Food for Thought : Beauty Foods


Mother Nature by Yours Truly

Everyone's heard the old adage " You are what you eat ."  Ok,  I had a fruit smoothie for breakfast with yogurt, blueberries, cantaloupe, grapes, and whey protein.

 Then as I was going through my morning skin care routine I happened to take a closer look at the ingredients in my moisturizer :  Yogurt, blueberries, cantaloupe, grapes, wild honey, figs and dark chocolate powder .  Gulp.  I had to look twice.  Was I dreaming or did I have my breakfast on my face ? 

It made me think more about the important link between our food and health and what it means for the condition of our skin, hair and nails . We hear much about the "superfoods " that we should be eating such as  blueberries, broccoli, soy, salmon, dark chocolate, oats, spinach, tomatoes, walnuts and yogurt.  Eating too much sugar, flour and trans fats , on the other hand we are told, causes inflamation .

Americans are living longer and are interested in maintaining their health, beauty, and energy .  We want  more natural options in the products we choose which is why the market for nutrition-based cosmetics is expected to grow to $5 billion worldwide by 2015.    Asia and Europe have the most consumers of these products but we are a hard-sell and want to see scientific evidence supporting the effectiveness of the claims of these products. 

As for my nutrition-loaded skin moisturizer I didn't read its list of ingredients very carefully and  picked it up because it was on sale .  After using it for a while  I found that it was very effective in keeping my skin hydrated through out the day .  Although I'd rather eat the blueberries and other fruits it contains I feel better knowing that its a food-based product without a lot of harsh chemicals. 

10 comments:

  1. I painted in my mind a funny picture of you wearing all that fruit. Lovely painting and yours too! I use WELEDA "Skin Food" and Hauschka . . . both use biodynamically grown plants. We often forget that our skin is our largest organ and that it swallows whatever we put on it.

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  2. Now we can add, "We WEAR what we eat." :-) Better than "having egg on your face," I reckon :-)

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  3. Carolyn, I think it's very important to look at the ingredients in our personal care products and understand what we are putting on our skin. It's something I've been paying a lot of attention to recently, and have been pretty mortified by some of the toxins in some of that stuff.

    Your moisturizer sounds delicious and nourishing for your skin, and your smoothie sounds delicious and nourishing for all of you. Substitute kefir for yogurt, and your smoothie sounds a lot like the ones I enjoy every day.

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  4. Carolyn, I love your paintings, reminding me of my favorites Paul Gauguin, Vincent Van Gogh and Henri Rousseau.

    Eileen

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  5. Your painting is very good, Carolyn! The post is delicious, with only one minus - you didn't give us a name of your moisturizer!

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  6. Hey Carol,

    I'm sure you have a vivid imagination as well. I've heard a lot of good things about Weleda but haven't tried it.

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  7. Hi Linda,

    There are a lot of harsh chemicals in some of the cosmetics that I've tried and they actually harmed my skin.

    I love Kefir as well.

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  8. Wow, Eileen, I'm honored to be compared with those masters :-)

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  9. Thanks, Tatyana, it's Skin Appetit Nutri-collagen daily moisturizer by Keri Glassman, a well known nutritionist in NYC and you can find it at most major drugstores.

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