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Eat your way to better skin

Dieting is about more than just your dress size. We all know that eating the wrong foods can cause spots, or even worse, wrinkles, so it makes sense that eating the good stuff can improve the condition of your skin.

And, as 67% of you told us you care more about your face than your body, we thought it was about time we reconsidered diets and what they should do for us. We called on the skincare experts the celebrities have on speed dial to find out exactly what you should be eating to get A-List skin.

Read what they told us here…

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Nicola Elliott, qualified nutritionist and founder of skincare brand Neom Organics says, ‘choosing the right diet is crucial; don’t go for Atkins if you want better skin. Cutting out carbohydrates is utter madness, they provide the fuel we need for our skin to renew itself.’

And Dr Debra Luftman, Beverly Hills based Dermatologist explains ‘you can make noticeable changes to your skin by simply changing your diet. Dermatologists feel that nutrition is the key to beautiful, healthy skin’

Many of our modern day ailments such as acne and eczema are due to poor diet. ‘I am seeing more and more adult women with acne, who have never had acne before, mainly due to hormones pumped into our meat and dairy,’ says Luftman. Shockingly, a bad diet can even give you wrinkles, ‘processed foods with high sugar content can contribute to early skin ageing,’ she reveals.

But it can be hard to decipher what is ‘good’ food. Processed foods are often packaged to look healthier than they really are. Meats have added water pumped into them. Fruits and vegetables retain their shelf life with help from scores of preservatives. ‘We are all made to think organic is some kind of elitist, superior form of food, when it’s really food as food should be,’ says Nicola Elliot.

Dr Perricone MD a dermatologist explains that the best diet for great skin is ‘a sensible one made up of the freshest possible fruits and vegetables, combined with low fat sources of protein, complex carbohydrates and fresh, clean water’.

But before we change our diet, we need to understand what is happening to our skin on a cellular level. As the millions of cells that make up our skin become damaged by the environment, inflammation and stress ‘holes start to appear in the cell walls and the water, keeping the cells plump, leaks out and the cells become shrivelled resulting in wrinkles’ explains Dr Murad, an LA based Dermatologist.

‘Eating the right foods is the key to repairing these holes and reversing skin damage, while skincare is important, a bad diet can be especially detrimental to your skin’ adds Dr Murad.

The key? Eat smart. To get optimum results and the clearest, healthiest skin you shouldn’t eat any old meat and two veg. Here’s ELLE’s guide to the top foods that will get your skin looking better than ever.

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