My Interview With Mail Online
The Vainest Reasons to Drink Your Fruits and Vegetables
You’ll find them in flashy rectangular bottles and clear plastic cups with straws in the hands of shiny-haired women carrying yoga mats and men with zero percent body fat and perfect teeth. There’s seemingly a chic retail store pumping them out on every metropolitan corner. Celebrities, models, and attractive hipsters alike are shelling out three times the cost of a Starbucks latte for them. Juices: by now we’ve all heard the health benefits, but is it just a coincidence that the people who are drinking them are so damn beautiful?
It’s widely accepted that the juicing of vegetables and a few fruits purifies and nourishes your body from the inside. If skin is your body’s largest and fastest-growing organ, then juicing will have positive effects on the outside, as well. You can’t eat garbage and expect to look great, essentially. According to Joe Fusco, who writes the popular tumblr, ImJuicerJoe, and is mentored by Dr. Mitchell Gaynor, Dr. Nick Gonzales, Dr. Ray Kurzweil, Dr. Russell Blaylock, and Dr. Michael Wald, fruits and vegetables are loaded with antioxidants, vitamins, enzymes, and phytochemicals – everything your body needs to remain healthy, hydrated and able to repair itself. Your skin is no different. Juices help arm and protect it from damage and oxidation, as well.
"Fruits and vegetables are loaded with antioxidants, vitamins, enzymes, and phytochemicals"
Cucumbers top the list of skin-benefiting vegetables, containing high levels of silica, which is a trace mineral known to help with connective tissue. We’re born with a great deal of silica (which is why babies have such amazing skin and hair), and it gradually decreases as we age. To fight this, a combination of cucumbers and celery, asparagus, lemon, broccoli, red bell peppers, and/or carrots, will result in ultimate hydration, and your skin will feel rich and youthful.
When juicing for overall skin health, use vegetables and fruits with a high level of vitamin C, because it positively effects collagen production, which, in turn, keeps skin firm. And judging from the seemingly endless array of skin-firming beauty products on the market, this is important to us.
What about clearing breakouts? Bouts of acne at certain times of the month, and run-of-the mill spurts of unsightly activity at the skin’s surface? Fusco says spinach and carrots are wonderful for clearing these up. Spinach has vitamin F, which results in high-functioning, toned skin, while carrots are rich in beta-carotene, which ignites a healthy glow from the inside.
"Vegetables like spinach, collards, asparagus and beet greens [...] in addition to protecting you against anemia and cataracts, give you really pretty, lush nails and hair. Bonus!"
In terms of nail and hair growth, you’re going to want to pump your body full of B2, also known as riboflavin. You know those aforementioned dark green juices the beautiful people are swigging? These are the ticket. Dark, leafy green vegetables like spinach, collards, asparagus and beet greens, for example, aid in the body’s metabolizing of amino acids, fatty acids, and carbohydrates, which, in addition to protecting you against anemia and cataracts, give you really pretty, lush nails and hair. Bonus!
Convinced? Here are three tried-and-true juice recipes to either make at home or grab on the go.
