Eating a healthy and balanced diet is the best thing you can do for your body, inside and out, but there are nutritional components and specific foods which can help you with your complexion and overall skin appearance. Given that your outer layer is the biggest organ in your body and is exposed to everyday elements such as air pollution, free radicals, smoke, and other toxins, you need to fight harder and eat a bit better to care for it.

Common wisdom dictates that we eat a balanced diet. The United States Department of Agriculture designed the Food Pyramid to address the issue of what types and amounts of food that your body needs to function optimally. They even have a food planner to help design a healthy diet that works for you. In addition to the Food Pyramid, it is wise to limit preservatives, processed foods, and sugar, and to try and increase specific types of foods, vitamins and supplements to help keep your skin looking its best.

Antioxidants
Antioxidants help fight against free radicals, including those that damage skin. Protect your skin cells and slow the aging process by adding berries, oranges, grapes, apricots, dark green leafy veggies, broccoli, red peppers and carrots to your diet.

Essential Fatty Acids
Essential fatty acids provide metabolites which are crucial to membrane structure, cell functions, and maintaining the impermeability barriers of the skin. The body does not manufacture essential fatty acids, so the only way to get them is through ingestion of food that contains the fatty acids. The easiest of these to incorporate into your diet would probably be Omega-3s, found in oily fish, preferably fresh and not farmed. Good choices are mackeral, herring, black cod, fresh tuna, rainbow trout, and salmon. Also along this vein are healthy oils, also containing fatty acids and which keep the skin lubricated. Make sure you stick to oils that have the least amount of heat processing, such as extra virgin olive oil (EVOO As Rachel Ray calls it), or cold-pressed oils such as safflower, sunflower, canola, corn,, and sesame, all of which are good to dress salads.

Vitamin A
This nutrient is essential to maintaining and repairing skin tissue, but it also has antioxidant properties. Without it, your skin can become dry and itchy and even lose some of its elasticity. Vitamin A can be found in low-fat dairy products, sweet potatoes, tomato sauce, liver, eggs,

B Vitamins
B-complex vitamins have long been recommended for stress, and eating foods high in B vitamins can help relieve dry and flaking skin. You can find these in whole grains and breads, rice, oatmeal, fish and eggs.

Vitamin C
Vitamin C is important for fighting sun damage, skin infections and healing wounds. Drink that morning orange or grapefruit juice, slice up some juicy oranges for a snack, and cook up some broccoli for dinner.

Selenium
This mineral, also an antioxidant, is important to the health of skin cells and has an anti-aging effect. The best sources of selenium are Brazil nuts, mixed nuts, whole-grain bread and cereals, tuna, swordfish and turkey, among others.

And don't forget to hydrate. Water, water and more water.

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