beauty cosmopolite

Why 'Table Salt' Contributes to Cellulite and More (And What to Use Instead!)

Is your salt beautifying or beauty-stealing?

Hi all, hope you're well! Some of you have noticed a slow-down in posts lately (thanks for getting in touch)...I've been busy in the kitchen! Actually, my client's kitchen -- we're making some delicious upgrades to more beautifying foods -- a whole new way of eating! One upgrade was to her salt. She thought I was going to tell her to avoid salt and use some "healthy herbal thing" instead. No way! Salt has an essential place in a healthy and beautifying diet. But the type of salt you use makes all the difference.

What you want to avoid is regular, refined table salt -- it is very highly processed, which actually changes the chemical composition of salt (and it may also contain toxins and even dangerous additives like aluminum compounds for anti-caking!) 

Processed, refined salt is no longer a natural product that your body can recognize and easily metabolize. As you body works to eliminate this salt, it draws a lot of water from your cells, which can end up upsetting your natural fluid balance. This in turn can contribute to issues like cellulite and puffiness -- and more serious problems like arthritis, gout, kidney and gallbladder stones, and more.

As with anything you eat, what you want is a salt that is as pure and unrefined as possible. Unrefined salt contains minerals and its natural life-force -- it will react very differently in your body than highly-processed, "dead" salt. Some good choices to consider include Celtic sea salt, Himalayan crystal salt, and Redmond Real Salt -- all so much healthier and tastier than "table salt"!

Even though we want to use any salt in moderation, salt is critical in our diets. It contributes to important bodily processes, including helping to carry nutrients to our cells and regulating blood pressure. And there are even studies indicating that sodium deficiency can lead to mood issues like fatigue and depression -- and that salt is a natural mood-elevator! 

One more thing -- remember to avoid processed/packaged foods which are also often loaded with that toxic, un-beautifying, processed salt! Okay, signing off for now -- back to the, um, salt-mines (eww, sorry!) Happy weekend, everyone! :)

A Beautifying Beverage With Antioxidant-Power

 

Hi all, hope you're well! There's been a bit of a slow-down with summer posting as I've been working on some (exciting!) projects... But I wanted to get to a question someone asked me about summer-beverage options. She said she's "addicted to iced-coffees" when the weather is hot, even though she "knows these aren't the best" for her -- and was wondering if switching to iced-tea would be a better choice. 

So, the short answer is that tea is a far superior choice to coffee (coffee is basically an anti-beauty-brew -- but that's a topic for a future post!) But to get real benefits from iced-tea, you want to go for the really good stuff. Typically, iced tea is made from regular black tea and loads of sugar -- all that pro-inflammatory, wrinkle-causing sugar detracts from the health benefits of tea.

I suggest upgrading to green iced-tea -- sweetened with stevia! Black tea is fine too, but because green tea is less-processed, it has greater antioxidant power. The polyphenols (antioxidants) in tea will fight free radicals (and help protect you from UV damage), lower inflammation, and aid in fat metabolism, among other benefits!

There is some research that says tea rehydrates as well as water. Even so, it's best to keep tea-drinking to no more than three cups a day, as tea contains caffeine, which is a stimulant. An interesting note, though -- a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed that caffeine from tea contains theanine, a protein which will offset some of the usual detrimental effects of caffeine found in other sources like coffee! 

To make green iced-tea, simply brew some green tea, adding about 50 percent more of the leaves or tea bags than you normally would for a regular pot of tea. Steep according to directions (don't over-steep, as this will make the tea bitter). Once it's cool, add some lemon if you'd like, for even more antioxidant power, and then sweeten to taste with stevia. Some fresh mint is nice, too. Voila -- a refreshing and beautifying summer drink!

A Perfect Body-Cooling Food

 

Hi all! Just got back from the Farmers' Market with bags of gorgeous produce, including plenty of cucumbers! I was thinking about cucumbers because as I was choosing mine, I overheard someone mention something to the effect that cucumbers weren't a "superfood", so why bother with them. What? So not true! Cucumbers may look humble next to showier leafy vegetables and flashy fruits -- but they are packed with beautifying benefits! Here are a few of them.

Cucumbers:

• are loaded with water, which is great for hydration
• can help prevent water retention
• have body cooling and anti-inflammatory properties, which is especially important during the hot summer months
• contain collagen-boosting vitamin C and caffeic acid, both which help boost skin health and protect it from UV rays
• contain silica, a mineral that is essential for healthy connective tissue, and helps promote shiny hair, strong fingernails and glowing skin!

Cucumbers are also a source of fiber, magnesium, potassium and vitamin A. What's not to love? In my part of the world, now is the time to take advantage of organic field cucumbers. You can get ubiquitous hot-house cucumbers any time of year -- but field cucumbers, grown naturally under the sun, are more nutritious and beautifying!

Avoid the waxed, non-organic varieties if possible. With organic cucumbers, you can eat the skin, which is where you'll find the hair-and-skin beautifying silica! (And if you do get commercially grown, non-organic cucumbers, you can peel the skin before eating and still benefit from the nutrients in the flesh.)

I add cucumbers to smoothies and salads, and just enjoy munching them as a snack. They also give the most refreshing twist to regular water -- just add cucumber slices to a pitcher of water. It sounds so simple, but makes such a difference -- I know someone who rarely drinks plain water because she doesn't like the "taste", but she will drink cucumber water! :)

Enjoy, everyone!

Red Gold for Glow

 

Hi all, hope you're enjoying some summer sun! I've been thinking about other foods that will boost the natural glow and tone of our skin. One that is in season right now in my part of the world is wild salmon!

A hairstylist who once worked with Jennifer Lopez told me he thought she had "the most gorgeous skin" he had ever seen -- and that she attributed it to regular servings of salmon. Whether this is true or not, I have no idea -- but I wouldn't be surprised if that played a role in her glowy complexion! Along with beautifying essential fatty acids, salmon contains a carotenoid called astaxanthin. This amazing antioxidant, which is what gives salmon its deep red or pink colour, has been called "red gold from the sea." And no wonder -- it is said to be 100 times more potent than vitamin E and 10 times more powerful than beta carotene. Salmon is true skin-food that works on a cellular level! 

I love indulging in salmon. It's an easy summer meal to cook at home, and when I'm out for Japanese food, I always order salmon sashimi -- so delicious and skin-enhancing with all those natural oils raw and intact! (And a much healthier choice than tuna sashimi, which can unfortunately be very high in mercury).

If you happen to not like salmon, lobster, shrimp and crabs also contain astaxanthin. And if you are a salmon fan like me, be sure to always go for wild salmon, as opposed to farmed, which is pro-inflammatory and NOT beautifying or healthy. Happy eating, everyone! :)

Eat Your Way to a Tan?

 

Hi all, hope you had a 'sunny' weekend, regardless of the weather in your part of the world! It continues to be more like fall than summer where I am (summer clothes still in the closet and I'm sitting here in a big sweater!) so I figured now would be a good time to answer a reader question on "tanning" with foods instead of sunshine. :)

The reader wrote that she heard something about being able to achieve a golden, tanned look just from eating an abundance of certain vegetables like carrots. "If this is true," she wrote, "it would make me so happy because I'm so pale and I'd love to have some color... Should I start drinking big glasses of carrot juice everyday?"

I'm guessing what the reader heard was related to a recent study out of Bristol University. According to news reports, a scientist conducted a study with "before and after" photos of people who consumed a diet rich in orange and green fruits and vegetables. Volunteers viewing these photos preferred the "golden glow" produced in the skin when a diet high in produce was eaten -- and they also preferred this healthy-diet-related look over sun-tanned faces.

The key was the carotenoids -- pigments found in a wide range of plant foods. The full details of the study have yet to be released, but it appears from news reports that there may have been a focus on beta carotene found in orange fruits and vegetables like, yes, carrots!

But in answer to the reader's question, I wouldn't go crazy with carrot juices. First, carrots are really high in sugar, so while they can have a place in a healthy, beautifying diet, you don't want to consume copious amounts of them, especially in concentrated juice form. Second, if you eat too many carrots (or other orange and yellow foods that contain beta carotene like pumpkin, etc.) you could go beyond a lovely golden-glow to an actual yellowing of the skin (you'd notice this especially on your palms and soles of the feet). That yellowing would fade as soon as you backed off from the beta carotene-rich foods.

A produce-rich diet is critical for beautiful, glowing skin -- and it's healthier (and more fun!) to eat a variety of them. Include lots of different colours -- from green leafy vegetables to purple cabbage to red tomatoes to blueberries and blackberries to white daikon radish, and more. I especially like dark green vegetables -- they are loaded with nutrients and have a high water content which promotes blood circulation for healthy skin tone. I generally aim to eat enough dark greens to equal about one head of romaine lettuce a day -- in addition to other veggies and some fruits.

And remember that eating plenty of nutrient-dense produce will also help boost your skin's natural defense against UV rays!

Thanks to the reader above for the great (and timely) question. See you soon, everyone!

Sugar: THE Wrinkle-and-Sag Food

So cute! But we don't want those wrinkles... 

Hi all, hope you're well! I'm back from a productive road trip, where I also had the pleasure of getting to know some new people. One woman I met asked me about the wrinkles and sags she's starting to see on her face. "I don't want to end up looking like a Shar Pei! Is there anything I can do?"

So, this lovely (and funny!) woman looks nothing like a Shar Pei, but we did talk about various lifestyle factors that can accelerate wrinkling and sagging, including unmanaged stress, lack of sleep, too little or too much exercise, and more. But a major culprit I want to focus on in this post is SUGAR.

I can't stress enough the connection between high sugar-consumption and skin issues. When I'm talking sugar, I mean sugary foods and foods that quickly convert to sugar in our bodies -- chips, rice cakes, muffins, starches like potatoes, nearly every packaged food (including so-called "healthy" breakfast cereals), refined flour products, fruit juices, sports drinks, and more. These types of foods cause our blood sugar to spike rapidly, which results in a whole host of beauty and health problems -- but for this post, we'll keep the focus on the skin.

When we eat sugar, it kicks off an ugly process called glycation, which occurs when the sugar combines with proteins in our bodies, like collagen. Collagen, as we know, is what gives our skin its structure, strength, and smooth, healthy appearance. Glycation breaks down our collagen, and also makes it stiff and inflexible. The result? Wrinkles and sagging.

And it goes further. When sugar molecules attach themselves to collagen, inflammation occurs. This can lead to various unwanted skin issues, including puffy eyes, dark circles, brown spots, dullness, irritations, blemishes... 

The good news is that we can rejuvenate and improve our skin dramatically by replacing sugary foods with a wider variety of vegetables, good protein and fats, and high-fiber fruits in our diet. And you don't have to give up sweet tastes, when there are some great, healthy alternatives to sugar out there! 

More on the "sugar" topic in future posts. See you soon, everyone!

Three Sweet Choices

Honey can be an anti-wrinkle, beauty-food!

Hi all! Following my post on agave nectar and how it is likely not the healthy sweetener we may have thought, I wanted to share some sweet alternatives! For optimum beauty and health, I recommend using sweeteners of any kind in moderation. But -- life's too short not to enjoy some sweet treats, right? So, here are three great choices you can consider.

Raw Honey

Raw honey (never pasteurized honey, which has all the goodness processed right out of it) is my favourite all-natural, unrefined sweetener. You may have heard honey get a bad rap from certain media sources because it ranks high on the glycemic index -- very close to sugar. And it is absolutely true that honey can spike your blood sugar, so it's important to use it in moderation -- or to avoid it if you have any sugar or weight issues.

However, in tiny amounts, honey can be beautifying! From a Western stance, honey contains trace amounts of minerals, enzymes, amino acids, B vitamins -- and even phytonutrients that may have anti-cancer properties! From an Eastern viewpoint (Traditional Chinese Medicine and Ayurvedic medicine) honey is a top beauty food. TCM believes that honey is an anti-wrinkle food that nourishes and regenerates the skin. And with its calming effects on our internal organs, honey can actually slow down the aging process. (Interestingly, a University study conducted in New Zealand a few years ago, showed that honey-fed rats were better able to combat signs of aging). 

It's best to limit honey consumption to about a teaspoon a day (and less than that if you are dealing with sugar or weight issues). One of my favourite sweet treats is to mix a small dollop of high-quality raw honey with some raw pistachios or almonds -- yum, this tastes way better to me than toffee or any other sugary-sticky sweet out there!

Stevia

For beverage-sweetening and baking purposes, stevia can be a good choice. Stevia comes from an herb in the chrysanthemum family, and various cultures have used the leaves for hundreds of years to sweeten teas and foods. The good thing about stevia is that it won't spike your blood sugar the way sugar will (and in fact, some studies have shown that stevia actually helps to stabilize blood sugar). The (possibly) not-so-good thing is that some people don't like the aftertaste. However, when using stevia in small amounts in recipes, that taste-thing is generally not an issue. And -- here is the brand I've heard highly recommended for superior taste and quality. I haven't yet tried this brand myself because I can't find it in my area, but I plan on getting some for taste-testing.

Xylitol

The name makes it sound like an artificial sweetener (which I would NEVER recommend) -- but xylitol is actually an all-natural product, albeit processed. Our own bodies can produce xylitol naturally, from the various foods we eat. Xylitol was originally derived from the fiber in birch tree bark (which you can still find, but it's expensive) in Finland when there was a sugar shortage during the war. Today, most of the xylitol on the market is derived from corn husk, so always look for xylitol sourced from NON-genetically modified corn. 

Because our bodies absorb xylitol slowly, it won't spike our blood sugar like regular sugar. It's an amazing sweetener -- it looks and tastes practically like sugar, with the only noticeable difference being that it leaves a "cool" sensation on the tongue. A couple of things to be aware of with xylitol: too much can have a laxative effect(!), so don't go crazy with it; and like chocolate, xylitol is toxic for dogs.

There are some interesting health benefits that are now being linked to xylitol -- including collagen-stimulation, anti-bacterial, and bone-building properties -- yay, definitely a promising beauty food! 

I have used xylitol and stevia for making sweet treats, and I must say, they were pretty awesome -- no one could tell that I used sugar substitutes! Again, I recommend using these natural, but refined, sweeteners in very small amounts. But they are definitely my choice over regular sugar or other sweeteners.

In another post, I'll look at why we absolutely want to avoid beauty-stealing sugar! I'm hitting the road for the next week, so you'll see a little break in posting, but will be back on track the following week. In the meantime, if you haven't already, you may want to sign up for my free RSS or email feed so that you automatically receive my latest posts! Have a great week, everyone! :)

Is Agave Nectar a Healthy Sweetener?

Agave nectar -- perhaps not as "wholesome" as we might have thought? 

Happy weekend, all! I wanted to do a post on agave "nectar" or "syrup" because a lot of people have asked me about it lately! And no wonder -- it is everywhere (if you visit an organic grocery store, you'll likely see huge displays of it). At a recent health and wellness expo I attended, it was an ubiquitous ingredient in various "healthy" food products. And there's a certain celeb who has touted it in her newsletter, promoting cookbook authors and health advocates who use it liberally in their recipes. Agave is definitely on trend and having its moment!

Agave nectar is made from desert plants found in Mexico (some of the same ones used to produce tequila). It comes from the agave core and is filtered, heated and treated (in other words, in most cases it is not the raw, non-processed sweetener I've seen several raw-vegan-foodies and others claim).

The reason there has been so much excitement about agave nectar is that it is relatively low-glycemic and won't spike blood sugar in the same way as some other sweeteners. And it's true that it is extremely important to avoid blood sugar spiking, which plays havoc with our skin and health. But there is more to it than glycemic load.

Agave nectar is extremely high in fructose -- up to 97 percent in some cases. As a comparison, cane sugar is 50 percent fructose and 50 percent glucose. Ironically, the high fructose content is why agave ranks fairly low on the glycemic index; our bodies do not easily metabolize fructose. The body basically uses glucose for energy and breaks down fructose in the liver, where it is converted to fat.

Fructose in itself is not a bad thing -- after all, fruits are generally high in fructose! However, fruits also come with fiber, enzymes, vitamins, minerals, and other important nutrients. Agave nectar, on the other hand, will give you a concentrated hit of fructose, without the additional nutritional benefits.

Too much fructose in the diet is related to several serious health and beauty issues, from obesity (excessive fructose is very damaging to the metabolism) to inflammation (which is a root cause of aging and disease!)

In addition to the high fructose issue, there are concerns that agave nectar may not be the "pure and natural" sweetener that marketers have led us to believe. Some recognized health experts claim that most of the agave available on the market is highly refined and processed, and likely contains contaminants -- and that it should be completely avoided. Other reputable health experts, however, say that agave nectar can be okay in very small amounts.

Clearly, the jury is out on this popular sweetener (although it may be that the word about the drawbacks is getting out --  I've been seeing ongoing sales of agave, in some cases less than half price!). Personally, I have chosen to avoid it -- based on current information available on agave, I do not consider it a beauty food in any way! I'll take my fructose in an apple! :)

"Dirtiest" and "Cleanest" Fruits and Vegetables

Blueberry season is coming up...be sure to choose organic! 

Hi all! I wanted to pass on the newest versions of the Dirty Dozen and Clean 15 lists that the Environmental Working Group just put out today. I've posted EWG's lists in the past; the Dirty Dozen lists the top conventionally-grown fruits and vegetables with the highest contamination of pesticides, and the Clean 15 lists those lowest in pesticides. A couple of notable differences: blueberries now rank as one of the Dirty Dozen; and the Clean list has been expanded to include cantaloupe, watermelon, and honeydew melon (and bananas no longer make the Clean list).

So, in a perfect world, we'd all be eating organically all the time -- but that's obviously not reality, especially considering cost and access! That's why I find these lists so helpful for making informed choices on what to buy organic and where to save money buying conventional. I do suggest opting for organic whenever you can. For optimum beauty and health we want to keep our toxic load as low as possible -- the more toxins our bodies are forced to deal with, the more we accelerate the aging process. I've written a fair bit about this topic -- here's a post you can check out if you haven't already.

And here are the lists -- hope you find them as useful as I do!

DIRTY DOZEN

• celery
• peaches
• strawberries
• apples
• blueberries
• nectarines
• bell peppers
• spinach
• kale
• cherries
• potatoes
• grapes (imported)

CLEAN 15

• onions
• avocado
• sweet corn
• pineapple
• mangos
• sweet peas
• asparagus
• kiwi
• cabbage
• eggplant
• cantaloupe
• watermelon
• grapefruit
• sweet potato
• honeydew melon

Getting in Touch with Your Inner-Princess -- Indonesian-Style

Making Jamu, a traditional Indonesian beauty-and-health tonic.

Hi all -- and thanks to those who sent me feedback on your experimentations with turmeric! So, a few people didn't like the taste, which I totally understand -- the earthy, pungent flavour can take some getting used to. (That gives me an idea to do a future post on incorporating different flavours into our diet, as in the West we're generally more accustomed to "salty" and "sweet" flavours, and not so much to other important ones like "bitter" or "pungent").

Anyway, back to turmeric, one reader asked me if she could just take turmeric pills (there are some good ones out on the market) -- which you absolutely can! But, as always, I find that nothing compares to the real stuff, and you may want to continue doing some experimenting with fresh turmeric root. With that in mind, following is a recipe that uses fresh turmeric and ginger -- and to balance out those sharp flavours, it includes sweet honey and tamarind, along with refreshing lime -- yum! 

This drink is actually a traditional Indonesian tonic, known as 'Jamu'. The ancient tradition of Jamu -- which, simply put, is herbal medicine -- is part of the Indonesian holistic approach to inner and outer health and beauty. Top-secret Jamu recipes were refined in the royal courts where pampered princesses were treated to daily herbal tonics as an important part of their beauty routines. Today, Jamu continues to play a strong role in Indonesian culture and is used to prevent or treat a variety of health and beauty issues -- and many Indonesian women attribute their soft, radiant skin to regular use of Jamu. 

I did notice a lot of Indonesian people, both young and old, with gorgeous, glowing complexions -- maybe turmeric, a popular ingredient in Jamu, had something to do with it! On that note, here's the recipe for the Aromatic Turmeric and Ginger Jamu. Measurements are approximate (I usually try to go more by taste than measurements) -- experiment and see what works for you. Bottoms up, and here's to getting in touch with your inner-princess, Indonesian-style!

• 100 grams turmeric
• 15 grams ginger
• 30 grams tamarind (this delicious, tropical fruit is getting easier to find these days in Western markets, even conventional ones)
• 50 grams honey
• 10 grams lime
• 5 grams salt
• 200 ml boiling water

Grate the turmeric and ginger. Place all ingredients (except the water) in a mortar and mash very well with a pestle. Put the mixture in a heat-proof bowl or saucepan and pour in the boiling water. Cover and let steep for 5 minutes. Strain well. Drink hot or cold!