“Sustainable health changes that last beyond the typical diet-cycle are possible when the driving force is rooted in self-compassion, self-kindness and self-love.”
Bekah Rieke
It’s time to stop spending money on creams and lotions that do little, if anything, to improve the condition of your skin. If you’re looking for a reason why your skin isn’t blemish-free and glowing with health, think back on what you ate for breakfast. Or supper last night.
If you’re not feeding your body healthy, clean food, it will show on your face. One of the best ways to love your skin is to enjoy hydrating, nutrient-rich, raw food that will cleanse, nourish and beautify.
Why Raw Food?
Cooking food destroys many of its enzymes, which are crucial for so many bodily functions, such as digestion, absorption of nutrients, production of energy and the repairing of DNA and RNA, which in turn improves the rate of repair of damaged skin cells. A lack of these vital enzymes can lead to a build-up of toxins that can slow down your metabolism, accelerate aging and dull your complexion.
Eating as many raw foods as possible helps to boost the number of enzymes in our bodies, which in turn means our digestive system doesn’t have to work quite so hard. Of course, not all foods should be eaten raw – meat and eggs, for example – and some foods actually benefit from a bit of cooking – tomatoes release the beauty mineral lycopene when they’re cooked – but most vegetables can and should be eaten raw, or drunk in smoothies, as often as possible.
All vegetables and fruit are enzyme rich, but for beauty purposes, we really should be listening to our mothers and eating our greens! The best skin-friendly greens are Swiss chard, rocket, kale, watercress and radicchio. Although not green, pineapple is also great for outward beauty as it contains bromelain, an enzyme which helps reduce inflammation and speed up healing.
Raw food contains a lot of fibre, which is nature’s “broom,” sweeping out unwanted toxins, fat and hormones from our intestines. This in turn helps to get rid of excess insulin and estrogen, neither of which do your skin any favours, as they can cause acne and inflamed skin.
Loving Your Liver
Our livers clean up toxins, and store and distribute essential nutrients, so we should all be loving our livers a lot more! Raw foods are great for reducing the workload on our livers because they are full of water and antioxidants, which help to promote bile function and boost detoxification. Liver-friendly foods include onions, garlic, apples, lemons and bitter greens.
“Raw food is the best way to have the cleanest energy. We take so much care about what kind of fuel we put in our car, what kind of oil. We care about that sometimes more than the fuel that we’re looking at putting in our bodies. It’s cleaner burning fuel.”
Woody Harrelson