Sun Protection In Your Food

You can eat “sunscreen foods” every day to maximize your body’s self-protection against damaging rays.

Protecting your skin by eating food tastes delicious, too! This approach can help decrease your exposure to toxins found in sunscreens and allow you to soak up enough rays for your body to make its own vitamin D.

Add these foods to your summer menu, along with your non-toxic sunscreen:

• Chard: These, and other dark leafy greens, can help protect your cells from free radical damage, caused in part by sun exposure. Tip: Toss a little extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar with steamed chard. Add walnuts, feta cheese, and sliced persimmon. Add salt & pepper to taste.
• Tea: Green, black, oolong, and white: Residents of the same bush, each of these tea leaf varie-teas provide important catechins and polyphenols, important antioxidant that can scavenge free radical damage created from sun exposure (and other consequences of free-living).
• Cacao: Thanks to its flavonols, it is popularly recognized as food that can help shield the skin against sun damage.  In fact, raw cacao contains more phytochemicals and antioxidant capacity than almost any other food, including green tea or red wine! Dark chocolate, processed without alkali, is more likely to boast higher levels of flavonols and antioxidants. We chocolate lovers can continue to worship it (while we worship the sun), thanks to its vitamin E and C content.
• Tomatoes: While tomatoes are great in almost any form for their lycopene content, research continues to point us toward the benefits of cooking them.
• Citrus Fruits: Oranges, grapefruit, lemon, and lime. Limonin & limonene are powerful antioxidants found in the rind of citrus fruits that have been shown to reduce cancerous compounds.
• Roasted Peanuts: When roasted, their antioxidant content elevates by up to 22%! Peanuts are packed with beta-sitosterol, an anti-cancer compound, and resveratrol, an antioxidant that has earned red wine its respect.

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Pack these delicious items to pack into your picnic basket:

• Waldorf broccoli salad packed into a cooler (recipe here is from my favorite Co-Op)
  
• Yogurt parfait with rolled oats or granola, sunflower seeds and berries.
• Enjoy a pasta salad tossed with peppers, broccoli, chopped spinach, walnuts, and spaghetti sauce.
• Grapefruit and avocado salad (recipe here) w/ toasted almonds on the side
• Apple slices with almond, sunflower, or peanut butter
  
• Watermelon-tomato salad for an explosion of cancer-protecting lycopene (recipe here)

Nutrients that help protect your skin from sun damage.

• Foods rich in Vitamin E include: Almonds, peanuts, wheat germ, sunflower seeds, pistachios, avocado, whole grains and oats.
• Foods rich in Vitamin C include: All citrus fruits, melons, dark leafy greens vegetables, peppers, carrots, cherries, apples, kiwi,  broccoli, berries, peaches, apricots, plums, pineapples, pomegranates, tomatoes, and many other fruits and vegetables. Since humans can’t produce their own vitamin C, we have to consume it in foods.

Sunscreen is still a good idea

I still apply non-toxic sunscreen and wear a hat when I’m outside, uncovered, for longer than 20 minutes during the brightest rays of the day. When the sun’s rays are weaker, such as before 9 AM and after 4 PM (at least in the Pacific Northwest), I’m less concerned about it. I want to have some sun exposure so that I can make vitamin D, and I like to avoid the chemicals often found in sunscreens. Find the balance that’s right for you and where you live.

Which of these ideas is the most surprising? Please share it in the comments below!

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