Top 10 foods to avoid for beautiful skin

Top 10 foods to avoid for beautiful skin

Dermatologist Dr. Richard Asarch has taken skin nutrition to a new plane in The Beautiful Skin Diet and done it in a fashion that's easy to understand and readily applied to our busy lives. "The primary goal in The Beautiful Skin Diet is to emphasize the importance of eating foods that benefit your health while avoiding those which are harmful," explains Asarch. "Beginning a lifestyle of healthy eating allows one to choose foods and recipes rather than requiring a strict adherence to a specific diet. If one can achieve this primary goal, then modifying it to lose weight, for example, can be accomplished with very little effort." Combining research, theory and practical application via mouthwatering recipes developed by the talented, European-trained Chef Neal Mendel, Asarch provides the answers health-, fitness- and beauty-conscious Americans seek. The following is excerpted from The Beautiful Skin Diet.

With all of the choices, it is difficult to narrow a list down to the top 10 foods to avoid. How did these foods warrant inclusion in my list? The choices were based on their interaction with the mechanisms of harmful, aging effects on the skin. Some have high levels of saturated fats, others cause sudden and wide sugar-load swings in the body with resulting insulin responses, while others have harmful levels of fatty acids.

Sources of protein are essential to good health, but those which contain high levels of saturated far and omega-6 fatty acids may do more harm than good. Ground beef, sausage and bacon have a very high fat-to-protein ratio--exactly the opposite of the type of protein you should choose. They are also prepared utilizing high-temperature cooking, creating additional harmful byproducts for your skin.

Saturated fats are known to harm the cardiovascular system, but recent studies have also shown that a diet high in saturated fat increases the incidence of skin aging and wrinkling. Trans-fatty acids have extremely harmful effects on skin health and appearance.

Carbohydrates involve a wide variety of foods that often do not come to mind when one thinks of carbohydrates. Ones that cause sudden, high blood glucose levels (e.g. raisins, pasta or baked beans) create conditions that have been shown to initiate inflammatory and damaging effects on our skin. Although most legumes have beneficial effects, canned baked beans are prepared with brown sugar or molasses, which negatively affect glucose levels. Also, high-temperature or prolonged cooking of beans can break down their cell walls. This releases simple sugars which are easier to digest and subsequently raise blood glucose levels.

In general, less-refined foods containing intact whole grains are digested slower and, in turn, are slowly absorbed into the bloodstream. This results in lower blood sugar levels and less insulin secretion and, thus, a lower glycemic load. Whole grain's nutrient-rich layers have not been removed by refining and, therefore, have more fiber and other micronutrients. A handful of recipes in The Beautiful Skin Diet include breads or pastas, so it is important to use whole grain varieties. These recipes also contain proteins and other foods which have an overall effect of lowering the glycemic load.

The table below shows foods to avoid. If I had to pick the number one food to avoid, it would be one of America's favorites--the French fry. It has it all: a carbohydrate that causes a rapid rise in blood glucose, fried at high temperature in, usually, trans-fatty acids and, due to cooking a carbohydrate at such high temperature, contains acrylamide, a substance believed to cause cancer'. Don't forget to avoid the French fly's close relative, the potato chip. It isn't any better.