The Raw Food Rule for Radiant Skin
I recently posted an article on a simple routine to Naturally Cure Dry Skin. Because beauty truly does come from within, today’s article focuses on the relationship between your diet and your skin.
Even though this simple 2-step routine will go a long way toward clearing up your dry skin, it’s not the best way to ensure a healthy epidermis.
The absolute best thing you can do for your skin actually has nothing to do with soaps, body crèmes, or exfoliants!
Hydration
One of the biggest problems with eating an unhealthy cooked food diet is the simple fact that this diet is extremely dehydrating.
Why? Two reasons:
1. The food is cooked, meaning that much of the water has been drawn out via heating.
2. Most cooked food staples are full of irritating salt, spices, and condiments that draw the water out of your cells.
This is why dieticians, nutritionists, and the like recommend a staggering 8-12 glasses of water per day. This water is needed to counteract the dryness and toxicity inherent in the standard cooked food diet.
But don’t think raw foodists are off the hook! Unfortunately, the mainstream raw food diet doesn’t do much better in terms of hydration and actually makes the same two mistakes present in a cooked food diet:
1. While not cooked, many of the foods consumed are DEHYRATED, and so much of the necessary water is removed.
2. Raw foodists are known for their love of salt, as well as other irritating spices such as garlic and cayenne pepper.
Again, we see the exact same problems associated with cooked food eaters: dry and toxic ingredients.
This is likely the reason so many raw foodists continue to experience acne (as well as other health issues).
If they would just stop consuming all the dry, fatty, irritating foods and start consuming more fresh, water-rich ingredients, I bet they would see a marked improvement in the condition of their skin.
Which segues nicely into my final point…
How to Stay Hydrated
If you really want radiant skin, you need to stay hydrated. And the best way to stay hydrated is NOT to drink gallons of water a day, but to eat a diet of water-rich foods.
And what diet might that be? Why, a low fat raw vegan one, of course! The amount of sweet fruit you will eat on such a diet has *more* than enough water to keep your skin healthy and hydrated.
And the more simply you eat – meaning the less irritating salt and spices you consume – the less toxic ingredients your body will have to dilute by removing precious water from your cells.
Another benefit of simple eating: no water retention! Again, irritating salt and spices have to be diluted, which means that your body actually holds on to the water to keep the salt in solution.
Sounds counterintuitive, right? You are holding onto more water and yet your body is dehydrated.
That’s because the water is no longer in your cells or bloodstream, but in your skin. This is what gives so many salt lovers that “puffy” look.
It’s Not Just About Diet
Instead of ending on that note, I want to quickly add that it isn’t all about diet.
Perhaps you saw this one coming, but it’s so true!
No matter how clean your diet is, your skin (and your health, for that matter) will never be as great as it could be if you do not take other health factors into account.
Factors such as:
- Exercise
- Sunshine
- Fresh Air
- Clean drinking water
- Etc.
All of these have a huge effect on the look and feel of your skin.
Healthy skin comes from within!
Your Results?
Have you recently stopped consuming dehydrating cooked and/or raw foods in favor of more fruity, fresh fare? How has this worked out for your skin? Are you radiantly raw and loving it?
Leave a comment below! I’m a sucker for success stories. 
Go raw and be fit,
Swayze
9 comments
Thank you for promoting diabetes by eating lots of high water fruit which is loaded with sugar. Have you any idea most all the fruit today is hybridized to be full of sugar?Originally fruit as we know it was bitter, sour, and tart. Not sweet. Cayenne irritating?
To what? not the stomach lining..it heals it of ulcers from eating to much sugar laden fruit. Not the heart or blood. It stops a heart attack in a minute or less from all the plaque built up in the arteries from all the sugar laden fruit. Not to mention increases flexibility of arteries and veins. Garlic…irritating? Yes to anaerobic bacteria. It’s a natural antibiotic.
What is great about fruit is the insoluble fibre. However that is available from non sweet sources.
Does the damage from fruit eating occur quickly? Sometimes.
Other times it’s a slow cellular /tissue/organ death process.
Enjoy.
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Mary Reply:
October 15th, 2009 at 9:23 am
I conceptually agree with your points, but using the raw foods diet has helped me a LOT. I still eat some seasonings, even raw and occassionally cooked garlic.
I still have some cooked meat or beans each week, mostly because I am too broke to eat all fresh food–even with some garden help. The days and even half-days when I eat all fresh, mostly sweet fruit, I feel great, and I have had sugar problems. It runs in my family, too.
Not mixing fats with sweets has enhanced my life tremendously, making me confident that I don’t have to develop diabetes. People can feel what food does to them and make some intelligent decisions as they go along.
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Heather Reply:
October 15th, 2009 at 10:28 am
Bob, you have been sadly misinformed. Enjoy.
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Swayze Reply:
October 16th, 2009 at 9:17 am
“Originally fruit as we know it was bitter, sour, and tart. Not sweet.”
I have no idea where you get this information from. Have you ever consumed tropical fruits? These foods are often just as sweet, if not sweeter than their supermarket, conventional counterparts. And if fruits were not sweet, then why would humans and other primates have evolved with such a massive sweet-tooth?
“Cayenne irritating?To what? not the stomach lining..it heals it of ulcers from eating to much sugar laden fruit.”
Food does not heal. The body heals. Eating a species-appropriate diet allows the body to properly heal itself.
“What is great about fruit is the insoluble fibre. However that is available from non sweet sources.”
I would argue that it is the water-soluble fiber that is great, not the insoluble fiber. The insoluble fiber (found in the skins of fruits and vegetables and more cruciferous greens and veggies) is simply eliminated. Fiber available from other sources, such as grains, is insoluble and very coarse…making it highly irritating to our digestive tract.
“Does the damage from fruit eating occur quickly? Sometimes.Other times it’s a slow cellular /tissue/organ death process.”
I’ve been eating low fat, high fruit raw vegan now for almost 2 years (my anniversary is a couple of weeks away). I have never felt better and never looked better. I think I’ll take my chances with fruit.
Thanks for the comments, Bob!
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Oh–other things. I don’t salt things anymore, except for the occassional grain (millet, which I have about 10 pounds of in my pantry) dish. I don’t even salt my lima beans, which I have about 30 pounds of, dry, in my pantry. Once I learned that salt fights the use of potassium, i quit using it almost totally. I like my food better and it does not make me all thirsty. My sense of light-headedness when I stand up quit almost with a day of eating just the raw foods meals; if I eat much salted food, it comes back. I do get to eat raw about five days in a row at times. I love that.
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Swayze, my skin has done a complete turn around since I started eating mostly raw, and mostly fruit. Used to have blood sugar problems when consuming copious amounts of junk, but no longer.
Yeah, Bob, you’ve been singularly and badly misinformed. I do try to avoid the seedless varieties of fruit, but other than that, I enjoy it in great abundance and have gone from fat and sick to thin and glowing.
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Me too! I used to have sugar problems on what I thought was a healthy cooked diet and also on a high fat raw diet, but they disappeared when I started eating low fat raw and lots of fruit. My skin is soooo much better too.
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Awesome guys!
I actually used to have these red bumps on my upper arms and face when I was younger. My mom and brother have them as well. They used to be really, really bad and embarrassing (a kid made fun of me once in 6th grade). A dermatologist gave me this hardcore medication that just dried out my skin and made the red bumps more noticeable.
As I got older and started getting more sunshine, the bumps got progressively better to where they were only noticeable on my arms. Once I went raw, they were gone within a few months!
Anyway, I have no idea what this skin condition is called. I know it’s prevalent with fair skin, or “Irish” skin, but I’ve also seen it on olive toned skin.
Any ideas?
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I had the exact same experience in the summer of 2008, Swayze. I (who am a very fair-skinned person) had ugly red bumps all over my arms, which the medicine only made three times as red and angry looking. Once the two weeks were over and I quit using it, it eventualy went back to the way it looked before the meds.
When I changed my lifestyle, it started looking better and eventually disappeared. The bonus is that, because I gradually built up the time I spent outdoors in the sunshine, I actually got a natural tan on my arms, face and neck for the first time in my life! People are always complimenting me on my improved skin and it’s a great opening to tell them about eating lots of raw fruit!
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