What to Eat: The Healthiest Foods for Your Body

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From The Handbook of Natural Beauty ©1975 by Virginia Castleton. Permission granted by Rodale Press, Inc., Emmaus, Pa. 18049.

There's no need to spend part of your hard-earned allowance on store-bought beauty preparations. In fact, most everything you'll need to stay fit and healthy looking can be found right in your own kitchen, as this excerpt from The Handbook of Natural Beauty explains.

"You are what you eat"—there is indeed a measure of truth to the old adage. Regular intake of different kinds of foods is reflected by your body in skin and hair conditions, and in weight gains or losses. While you are caring for your body's external needs, consider also how your diet can help to solve (or create) beauty problems.

The first requirement for health and beauty is a well balanced diet, containing all the vital nutrients in proportions tailored to your physical frame, age, sex and lifestyle. Very basically, aim for a diet that includes a variety of foods from the four major food groups—meats and fish, dairy products, fruits and vegetables, grain products. Feed your skin the same nutrients the rest of your body needs.

Generally speaking, foods that cause problems for healthy skin and hair are the same foods that may harm a healthy body. Try to avoid refined sugar, saturated animal fats, fried or heavily processed foods, and all kinds of junk foods.

Listed below are some foods that should be emphasized in a well balanced diet plan to help clear up specific problems.

THE SKIN

OILY SKIN

Helpful foods—fresh fruits and vegetables (and their juices), fish, poultry, lean meats, eggs, whole grain cereals

Supplemental suggestions—brewer's yeast

DRY SKIN

Helpful foods—polyunsaturated vegetable, seed or nut oils, protein-rich foods

Supplemental suggestions—vitamins A and E

DULL OR MUDDY SKIN

Helpful foods—yogurt, apricots

Supplemental suggestions—brewer's yeast, vitamin B complex

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