Foods that’ll make you look younger

 

Sweet potatoes: Beta-carotene, which makes these tubers orange, balances your skin’s pH, helps combat dryness, and promotes cell turnover, all resulting in smoother skin.

•Wild salmon: The pigment that makes the fish pink, astaxanthin, is a powerful foe of free radicals, rogue molecules that damage cell membranes and DNA and cause skin to age. A study found that eating one serving every five days can prevent actinic keratoses — ugly rough patches that are precancerous.

•Tomatoes: The fruit’s red pigment, lycopene, is a potent antioxidant that shields skin from sun damage — like sunscreen, but from the inside out. To best absorb lycopene, eat tomatoes with olive oil.

•Citrus fruits: Vitamin C is essential to building collagen, a vital component of young-looking skin, which starts breaking down in your twenties. Citrus also contains bioflavonoids, which protect skin from UV rays and help prevent cell death.

•Leafy greens: Spinach, kale, and other greens contain lutein, which protects skin from sun-induced inflammation and wrinkles.

•Reject white foods: Need another reason to avoid white bread, pasta, rice, and other refined grain products? They’re quickly broken down into the ultimate white food: sugar. Once in the bloodstream, sugar bonds with protein and creates advanced glycation end products (aptly abbreviated AGEs), which cause collagen to become inflamed and stiff, leading to wrinkles.