Entries Tagged 'Food' ↓

My travel buddy has trouble swallowing tablets, he actually has to chew supplements and vitamins instead of swallowing them whole. And you can just imagine how awful some of them actually taste.

So when we were on the lookout for some multi-vitamins in Waikiki (we were both sick with a head cold) of course he loved the idea of the chewable variety because then he could chew them up without having to put up with a nasty flavor.

So we bought this brand of vitamin called ‘Multi Chewable’ from Nature Made which taste a lot like an orange sweet.

I was always a bit suspicious of these vitamins because nothing healthy could possibly taste that sweet and organgy. I felt like I was eating confectionery, not a vitamin tablet. BUT, stupidly I didn’t bother looking at the ingredients list until we’d gone through the whole lot.

Out of curiosity [too late] I discovered that the sweetness in the vitamin tablets was actually from the addition of fructose (fruit sugars), xylitol and aspartame. Now fructose I’m not too happy with because it has a very high GI, xylitol is okay because I haven’t found anything bad about it yet …but aspartame is a chemical that I swore would never pass my lips again for as long as I lived. And here I was, having just chugged down half a bottle of vitamin tablets that were packed full of that evil stuff.

For those of you who are unaware of the dangers of aspartame (which mind you can also be found in diet pop, chewing gum and confectionery), you can read my brief article about it here: DO NOT eat these foods. I think the title of the article speaks for itself.

I am absolutely appalled that a company selling health products has added aspartame into their vitamin tablets. I’m annoyed with myself for supporting a company that uses aspartame, and I’m even more annoyed that I purchased from a company which appears to be either oblivious to the fact that this chemical is poisonous to our bodies, or doesn’t seem to care.

From now on I’ll be checking every single ingredient on all vitamins and supplements that I buy, and so should you.

Fran

In Brisbane, Australia (where I’m from) there is only one vegan restaurant, and I was lucky enough to live down the road from it. Even though the decor of the restaurant was old and mouldy and the food was served out of a bain-marie, what intrigued me so much about The Forest were its patrons. Everyone that went into that resturant had fabulous skin! I’m talking about beautifully clear, radiant and naturally beautiful glowing skin. It made me wonder, do vegans have better skin?

I am not a vegan but I am vegetarian, and at the time I had really crap skin - a ton of pimples and a few cysts. But there was something different about me I guess, my acne was from stress, I had only recently become vegetarian, and well …I wasn’t really a vego because I did still eat seafood. I remember looking around at all The Forest’s patrons with their stunning healthy radiant skin and having this thought, that perhaps being vegetarian for like ..a long period of time gives you the reward of great skin. Or maybe I needed to become completely vegan. So all I had to do was eat no meat for longer and give up milk and eggs!

Well, knowing a little more about food now I don’t think that being vegetarian or vegan is the answer. So all of you acne prone meat eaters out there can breathe a sigh of relief. You don’t have to give up your chicken wings and ribs to get rid of your acne. So why did the patrons of The Forest all have geat skin? I think it was because in general, they ate better. The food at the Forrest was vegan, sure, but it was also super healthy. They even served brown rice instead of white rice! So my guess is that the patrons that prefered this restaurant also prefered looking after their health and watching what they put into their bodies. Continue reading →

I was in an organic grocery store the other day and found this really awesome (yet super expensive) product that I just had to buy. It’s sprouted ground flax (flax meal) with blueberries. This is a fantastic product for the skin. If you’re not taking flax seed oil or eating flax seeds, well you should be!

Essential Fatty Acids and the acne connection

Flax comes under the category of ‘essential fatty acids’, or EFAs. For everyone that has acne due to a hormonal imbalance (that’s probably about 90% of you), then increasing the amount of EFAs in your diet will help a lot.

Generally, we don’t have enough EFAs in our diet. This is bad because EFAs can in fact help reduce the production of the sex hormone androgen’s …which is the very same hormone that causes excess sebum production in the skin and gives us acne. Continue reading →

I know I say that chocolate is good for your skin, and it is …but you need to be really careful with what chocolate you eat. It doesn’t mean that you can go to the grocery store and stock up on Cadbury and Hershey’s and eat it until you drop. It’s actually a lot more complicated than that.

Mmmmmm chocolate fondue!

The reason why regular chocolate is bad for you and will make your acne worse, is because of all the sugar and chemicals they add to it. It’s the cocoa in chocolate that is great for your skin. The sugar and chemicals they also add to the chocolate will unfortunately aggravate your acne. So what you need to do is find raw cold compressed cocoa, or buy chocolate that contains NO sugar and NO chemicals.

raw cocoa = healthy skin
sugar = pimples
chemicals = pimples

I’m a self-confessed chocoholic so I know a bit about chocolate. While I’ve been in Vancouver I’ve also been indulging in a lot more chocolate than I normally would. Usually I’ll only eat a very small amount of organic dark chocolate every now and again, but while I’ve been here, I’ve been feasting on Godiva (hey, they don’t have it in Brisbane), Rocky Mountain, chocolate fondue, hot chocolates …chocolate anything really, you name it and I’ve probably eaten it over the last week. I even lay in the bath the other night reading a chick-flick and eating dark chocolate truffles. I was in heaven.

Another yummy scrummy chocolate fondue. Yes, I tried TWO different fondues in Vancouver

These chocolate apples looked amazing

I’ve been extra relaxed because I’m on holidays and I’m giving myself a break. And even through I’ve always opted for the dark chocolate varieties while I’ve been here, I know the sugar is really bad for my skin. In fact, I’ve noticed that the couple of spots I do have, have been larger, more inflamed, deeper red in color and take longer to go away. My scars are also taking longer to heal. My friend that I’ve been travelling with (who’s probably a bigger chocoholic than me) has also got a couple of pimples too, and he VERY rarely gets a spot.

So there you go, we’ve decided to treat ourselves on holidays and we’re suffering for it, but hey ..I don’t feel bad because I know it’s only temporary, and sometimes you need to just chill out and do that. So I get a couple more pimples, I know it’s not forever, so be it. Next week we’ll be settling into Toronto for a few months and getting back into working, eating well and doing a lot of yoga …and I know my skin will love me for it But for now, pass me another chunk of rocky road please!

Fran

I get asked for skin care product recommendations a lot, and in the past I’ve been recommending what I’ve used and what was has worked best for me. However, I thought it was about time that I compiled a proper list of skin care ingredients that not only will not clog your pores, but are also safe to use on acne prone skin.

What does comedogenic mean and why it’s SO important

If you have acne prone skin then you will need to know what comedogenic means. In fact, you should become an expert in comedogenic and irritating ingredients in skin care.

How Comedogenic an ingredient is basically means how likely it is to clog your pores. So usually a rating is on a scale of 0-5, with 0 meaning it will definitely not clog your pores, and 5 meaning stay away from that ingredient because it’s a pore clogging nightmare!! Continue reading →