Skin Care
Nature knows the best ways to keep us healthy, whether it is our organs, limbs, skin, or hair. The fruits and vegetables that we often tend to forget in our diet are the best treatments for bright, glowing, and healthy skin. The vibrant pigments in fruits and vegetables also have immense disease-fighting capabilities. Both fruits and vegetables can be divided into four color groups; each of them having specific benefits.
- ‘Oranges and yellows’ include sweet potatoes, carrots, oranges, and apricots. They are rich in vitamin C, which is highly beneficial to the skin, and aids in the growth and protection of collagen. Collagen retains the elasticity of your skin, thus delays the appearance of wrinkles.
- The group of ‘reds’ includes tomatoes, red peppers, red onions, and papayas, all of which are lycopene-rich. They effectively protect your skin from the harmful rays of the sun. However, it should be noted that cooked tomatoes offer you more lycopene than raw ones, meaning you get more benefits from tomato sauce than raw tomatoes.
- The next group is ‘greens’, which includes broccoli, kiwis, cabbage, kale, Brussel sprouts, green bell peppers, collards, romaine, and spinach. These vegetables are mainly rich in vitamin C.
- The ‘blues’ include plums, beets, eggplant, red grapes, and purple cabbage. They are rich in antioxidants, which are needed for healthy and radiant skin. Any combination of vegetables works wonders for the skin, because it not only delays the signs of aging but also keeps the skin bright, fresh and prevents dryness and other skin disorders.
Vegetables are used at home or salons for facial treatments to improve the skin health.
- Vegetable toner: Nowadays, many salons opt for vegetable facials and have started using a vegetable toner by mixing chopped cucumber flesh, lettuce leaves, lemon juice and chopped tomato into the facial material. You can make this toner at home quite easy to gain a brighter complexion.
- Vegetable peels: They are also used in many salons, which ensure blemish-free and bright skin.
Hair Care
You would be surprised to know that a healthy diet with many vegetables gives your hair a greater health boost than the most expensive shampoos in the market. Vegetables are undoubtedly the powerhouses of nutrition since they are packed with the vitamins and minerals that your hair need the most to ensure strong, healthy, and lustrous hair. As discussed before, if you categorize vegetables in terms of color and include at least one serving of each in your diet, you will get ample benefits for your hair.
- The dark green vegetables are rich in vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, and iron, which are essential for the production of sebum, an oily substance that is secreted from your scalp and acts as a natural hair conditioner. They also help prevent hair loss by ensuring optimal levels of iron and calcium in the body
- Red vegetables have plenty of lycopene. You will find this nutrient in many hair products as well. Red peppers have plentiful amounts of lycopene and the shiny outer skins have a high percentage of silica, a mineral required to maintain your hair’s thickness.
- The orange vegetables (especially carrots) have beta-carotene, which is the antioxidant necessary for healthy hair growth. They’re rich in vitamin C as well, which protects your hair from free radicals. The orange veggies shield your hair from the harmful effects of the sun and lock in the moisture.
- The yellow vegetables have similar nutritional value as those of orange ones.
- The white vegetables like onions are powerful antioxidants that shield your hair from root to tip. Moreover, they are rich in vitamin C, often considered the “anti-aging vitamin”.
Onion juice was recommended in ancient times to be applied topically since it helps in stimulating hair growth. Further studies are being done at different universities around the world regarding onion juice to see if this ancient claim is really true.
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