12 Nutritious Foods That Have Anti-Aging Properties

Topical treatments are often marketed to be the only way to rejuvenate or maintain healthy and beautiful skin, hair, and nails, but beauty isn’t just skin deep, and a healthy and fresh appearance also requires a healthy diet. In fact, the best way to keep your body and skin youthful is from the inside out, and nutrition is there to nourish and rejuvenate your entire body, making you feel and look radiant. Don’t get us wrong, we do believe in the use of skincare, and especially beauty oils for anti-aging, but you will achieve optimal results when you marry nutrition and skincare.

We have previously written what foods to avoid with anti-aging in mind and offered healthier food alternatives, but in this article, we’ll focus on 12 foods with proven anti-aging effects that are easy to find in stores and even easier to incorporate into your diet, so that everyone can enjoy and reap their multitudinous benefits.

1. Garlic

Garlic has natural antiviral, anti-inflammatory, antiseptic, and antifungal properties that it gets from its components called allicin and thiosulfinates. It is also rich in vitamins and minerals essential for healthy and clear skin, particularly vitamin A and B6, copper, and zinc. Apart from being beneficial at reducing and preventing breakouts, garlic is also capable of reducing swelling, redness, and inflammation of the skin and improves blood flow throughout the body, including the skin.Poor blood circulation, redness, and swelling are all problems we tend to face more as we age, and ones that can make us appear tired and unwell, not to mention their negative effect on self-confidence. Simply add in some minced garlic or even garlic powder into a pasta sauce, stir-fry or any other savory dish on the daily, and you’ll experience the beneficial effects first hand.

2. Blueberries

Blueberries are not just a delicious treat, which you can eat alone as a snack or sprinkle on top of any sweet meal like pancakes, granola, or oatmeal, they are a real vitamin and antioxidant powerhouse. More specifically, blueberries are rich in vitamins A and C, both of which are well-known for preventing wrinkles and collagen depletion, and are the key active ingredients in countless anti-aging skin care products in different forms, such as retinol, tretinoin, and ascorbic acid, just to name a few.

Just add a handful of these delicious antioxidant-rich berries into your diet and be sure they will improve your skin and protect it from rapid aging in the long run.

3. Watercress

Like blueberries, watercress is packed with vitamins A and C, and the crunchy leafy green is so easy to sprinkle on top of any food or incorporate into a salad it’s a no brainer. Since both vitamins A and C are categorized as antioxidants, they have the ability to prevent free radical damage, which has been attributed to skin aging, gray hair, and even several serious degenerative diseases like cancer.

In fact, a 2007 study looked at the antioxidant properties of watercress and found that a daily 85 g (approximately 2.5 cups) intake of the leafy green added to a person’s usual diet can significantly reduce DNA damage in adults. But even if you end up eating less of it and supplement it with other antioxidant-rich foods, you should be able to experience similar beneficial effects.

4. Sweet Potato

Sweet potatoes are an excellent addition to the table all year, and not only on Thanksgiving. In fact, replacing regular potatoes with sweet potatoes when you can is a real pro-tip when it comes to skin rejuvenation. This is because sweet potatoes, like carrots and bell peppers, get their vibrant color from beta-carotene, a powerful antioxidant, which the human body converts into Vitamin A – a regular feature on this list, at this point.The root vegetable is also rich in vitamins C and E, which are also magnificent for retaining a more youthful complexion and preventing acne if consumed regularly. So, even a seemingly indulgent food like the sweet potato may help retain skin elasticity and promote collagen production – which is great news!