Nutrients That You Should Get From Food

Nobody does it quite like Mother Nature, and Mother Nature does not make pills. Although no one can deny the vast contributions of science, try as man may, he has yet to manufacture a product, or pill, capable of healing and promoting growth in the same way Mother Nature can. That is why when it comes to seeking nutrition, there are some things science just can’t give us; and supplements don’t grow on trees. Here are some of the nutrients you should be getting directly from food sources.

Vitamin C
Citrus fruits are the best source of vitamin C, an antioxidant that helps your body absorb iron. One large orange contains 97.9 mg of the powerful stuff. That exceeds the recommended 90 mg a day for adult males and 75 for adult females. Other high C options include kiwi, tomatoes, and green and red pepper.

Calcium
Although not the most obvious source, Kale is a great way to get calcium to support nerve function and muscle movement. One serving of the leafy green contains 150 mg of calcium, which is a little over 10% of the recommended daily allowance. But rest assured, you can still get a good amount of calcium from dairy products, such as yogurt.

B Vitamins
Vitamin B 12 is one form of vitamin B usually taken in supplement form. It is important for the formation of red blood cells and neurological function. Eggs are a good source, and, while some shun them for their high levels of cholesterol, nutritional experts concur that this need not be the case. You can get 0.6 micrograms of B12 (about 10% of the RDA) from one large hard-boiled egg, and 3 oz of trout or salmon will just about do you for the daily intake.

B6, crucial for brain development and metabolism during pregnancy can be gotten for tuna, chickpeas, and nuts.

Vitamin A
We need vitamin A to maintain good vision and immune system function. It also plays a part in reproduction and supports the lungs, heart, and kidney.

Sweet potatoes are particularly high in Vitamin A concentration. Just one baked sweet potato with the skin on has a whopping 28,058 IU of vitamin A per serving. That’s 561% of the recommended value. The National Institute of Health reports that 28-37% of the population take vitamin A supplements.

Vitamin E
Vitamin E is an antioxidant contain in the body which helps the immune system fight off virus and bacteria. Almonds, hazelnuts, and peanuts are all rich in vitamin A, with one ounce of dry roasted almonds containing 34% of the daily recommended value.

Magnesium
Consider trading your magnesium supplements for a handful of cashews. These nuts are rich in the nutrient which is important for maintaining nerve function and healthy blood sugar and blood pressure levels.

One ounce of the cashews will provide you with a tasty way to get 74 mg of magnesium, 19% go the recommended daily amount.

Iron
Iron is a very popular supplement, especially for women who are at risk for not having enough. Men 19-50 should aim to get 8mg of iron each day, while women of the same age should get 18mg. You can get 3 mg of iron, around 17% of the daily recommended value in half a cup of drained, boiled spinach.

Vitamin D
Although most of our vitamin D needs to come from sun exposure, it is available in fatty fish like salmon and tuna. In fact, you can get 112% of the recommended daily amount from just three ounces of salmon, deliciously.

What about you? What supplements are you trading for foods? Let us know!

Improve Your Vitamin Intake and Your Glow

If you’re a mom or dad, or maybe you just have a funky taste,  you may know that vitamins can make the water in your bath glow.  You just crush up two vitamins, stir them in warm water and add them to your tub.  Turn the room lights off and the black light on and boom!  Your tub is glowing.  Now, if you have a child, they will be much more eager to get in the water and if you have just taken some strange drugs or too much alcohol you have a place to chill for the next hour or so. The takeaway:  Vitamins make things glow and they can make you glow as well!  Read on!

Vitamin C and E
When it comes to Vitamins that aid in skin care, Vitamins C and E are probably the first to come to mind. Topical Vitamin C ( applied directly to skin) can prevent sun damage that leads to skin cancer and 400 mgs of natural Vitamin E taken per day can reduce photo damage, wrinkles and improve skin texture.

A recent study by the Journal of Investigative Dermatology done in 2005 discovered that those who took vitamins C and E in the long term reduced sunburn from UVB radiation and saw a reduction of factor linked to DNA damage.

 Keep in mind that antioxidants work best together.  The American Academy of Dermatology says that when the two vitamins are combined in a lotion, they provide a high level of defense against sun damage, smoke, and pollution.  But, don’t abandon the sunscreen yet!  Always keep your sunscreen (25 SPF) in close reach.  When it comes to sun protection, there is no such thing as too much.

 If you prefer your Vitamins in your meals, you can find Vitamin C in bell peppers , citrus fruit, broccoli, cauliflower and leafy greens. Vitamin E can be found in veggie oil, spinach, olives, seeds and asparagus.  But, it is important to note that it is difficult to get a lot of E from food, so a 400 IU dosage per day is recommended.

Vitamin A
If you already get a lot of Vitamin A from your food, upping your intake probably won’t make a big difference in your skin, so you’ll probably want to go for Topical Vitamin A when it comes to getting that glow.  Vitamin A is necessary for maintenance and repair of skin tissue.  Medical studies show that Vitamin A leads to reduction in lines and wrinkles , acne control and psoriasis relief.  Impressively, research presented at the Annual meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology in 2003 from France showed applying Retinol plus Vitamin C (combine, combine) demonstrated a “reversal of skin alterations induced by chronologic aging and photoaging,” ( Are you still there or have you run out to pick some up?)

Vitamin B Complex
The most important B Vitamin when it comes to skin is BIOTIN.  If you have never tried this stuff, do!  It is the ultimate beauty vitamin and helps  form skin, nail and hair cells.  Furthermore, without it, you may develop dermatitis or hair loss.

Biotin can be found in bananas, eggs oatmeal, and rice and your body also makes some of its own, so most people get enough with our trying, but a little extra never hurts,  Topical preparation of B vitamins will give skin and almost instant healthy glow while hydrating cells and increasing tone.  Creams with niacin, a specific B vitamin helps skin retain moisture which can make your skin look PLUMPER and YOUNGER in 6 DAYS!( Hope you haven’t run to the pharmacy just yet.  You don’t want to miss that!)

Vitamin K
This, in the topical form, is the go to for reducing circles and bruises under the eyes.  Research published in the Journal Of the American academy of Dermatology found that skin treatments with Vitamin K reduced bruising after laser surgeries and a study published in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology found that topical application of a gel containing vitamins A, C, K,  and E helped in diminishing under eye circles and decreasing wrinkles.

Oh boy!  What a lot of buying you will have to do at the local pharmacy! But think of how lovely and glowing you will be after applying all this stuff for a few months.  Hey, maybe you can add Vits A,B,C and K to that bathtub!  Remember, use them together for best results and YOU GLOW GIRL!

Longevity Cream Benefits

When it comes to advertising, companies stop at nothing to target consumers who are obsessed with the idea of eternal youth. Skin care creams, serums and targeted treatments are now promising to reverse the clock and turn back time to make your skin look younger and to erase signs of aging. Unfortunately, these claims are largely disappointing for the women that purchase these products mainly because they are unrealistic. They say aging is a privilege denied to many, and that is undoubtedly true, however, that doesn’t mean that you want to look super old. Instead of focusing on erasing signs of aging, it’s time to focus on products that genuinely keep your skin as healthy as possible for as long as possible. Skin longevity creams certainly do boast of anti-aging benefits with carefully selected ingredients, but they mainly focus on keeping the skin you have the healthiest that it can be for the longest amount of time possible.

Ingredients in Skin Longevity Creams
So what is it that skin longevity creams use to keep your skin looking healthy? Many of these products contain known anti-aging ingredients that provide lasting results because they work deeply within the skin to help the structure of your skin stay strong and the cells to look radiant. These ingredients include:

• Resveratrol – Resveratrol is an anti-aging wonder because it not only supports your skin, but can also increase your skin longevity. Dermatology experts Robert Goldfaden and Gary Goldfaden, M.D., fully support the topical application of resveratrol for healthy skin because it has powerful antioxidant capabilities and it effectively protects damage from wrinkle-causing free radicals. “Resveratrol is also reported to stimulate healthy cell proliferation as well as collagen synthesis by protecting the dermal matrix from harmful enzymes and improving the function of fibroblasts that create healthy collagen.” Collagen is an absolute requirement for keeping your skin healthy, strong, supple and firm.
• Vitamin A – Vitamin A and its derivatives, particularly retinol, are among the most effective anti-aging ingredients that you can use to keep your skin healthy. Vitamin A has been scientifically proven to lighten areas of hyperpigmentation, smooth roughness and reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles. “There are more than 700 published studies on retinoids – they’re tried and true ingredients. Anyone who wants younger-looking skin should use one,” says Dr. Doris Day, assistant clinical professor of dermatology at New York University Langone Medical Center.
• Vitamin C – Another potent antioxidant, vitamin C and its derivatives fight free radicals to reduce current signs of aging and to protect skin longevity by preventing future free radical damage. In addition, vitamin C is also able to smooth and firm the skin, lighten areas of hyperpigmentation and increases your skin’s natural UV protection. Sun damage is the leading cause of signs of aging, so boosting the power of your sunscreen with vitamin C products goes a long way in prolonging the health and youth of your skin.

Skin longevity creams are anti-aging, but they do so with a focus on the health of your skin and not just removing wrinkles. Keeping your skin as healthy as possible creates a youthful, radiant look that lasts longer than products designed to just mask signs of aging. Add a skin longevity cream to your skin care regimen to keep your skin health, protect it from future damage and see instant radiance and youth with use.

Have You Been Treating Your Blemishes Right

Blemishes are a stubborn enemy when it comes to the fight for flawless skin; they seem like permanent marks on the surface of the skin; stains that won’t disappear no matter how much you try. Most other problems have relatively easy and understandable solutions: dull, dead bits of skin stuck to the face? Exfoliate! Dry, cracking, or otherwise parched skin? Moisturize and hydrate! Face too greasy? Cleanse! Pimples or acne? Wash with salicylic acid-containing products! But blemishes? It’s a bit more complicated, and all too often, you might simply resort to covering them with makeup (which is fine, and works as a quick fix, but it doesn’t address the root of the issue).

But never fear, blemishes can be removed with time and effort! They’re one of the more difficult skin care and beauty-related roadblocks, but they’re not insurmountable. As always, Vine Vera is here to helps with all your skin care-related beauty needs, and skin blemishes are no exception. Read on to see how it’s done.

Have Proper Prevention Habits
Can you guess what’s even better than removing blemishes? Preventing them from ever happening in the first place! Blemishes—imperfections such as acne marks, dark spots, and pigmentation marks—are as preventable as they are removable. First thing’s first, practice good hygiene and cleanse daily to avoid acne. If any pimples do happen to sprout up, resist the urge to pop them at all costs! Also resist the urge to manually extract blackheads, as both of these practices can lead to acne marks, a kind of blemish that can be a huge hassle to remove. Also, wear broad spectrum SPF 30 or higher sunscreen every day to avoid sunspot-type blemishes!

Ice Compressing
A rather weird but surprisingly effective trick for blemishes is to take a large piece of ice, wrap it in a washcloth, and firmly press it against a blemish for about five minutes. This is most effective on new blemishes, as it reduces inflammation and makes the new blemish less likely to “stick.”

Vitamin C
Besides being all-around fantastic for your health and skin care in a number of ways, vitamin C is great at evening out skin tone and removing blemishes. Just use a Vitamin C-containing facial moisturizer every day and you should start to see results after a few weeks.

Calamine Lotion
For older, more established blemishes that have been around for awhile and more than outstayed their welcome, use a combination of daily vitamin C application over the entire face, and rubbing calamine lotion directly onto the blemishes. Calamine lotion has a way of absorbing extra oil, which can pull out pigments causing the blemish too.

Combined Treatment
All these methods each help in their own way, but they’re more effective when used in tandem with each other! Practice proper prevention techniques always, to prevent new blemishes from forming. If a new blemish does pop up, use the ice trick to reduce it’s appearance, and go ahead and use a combination of vitamin C daily (even when your face is clear of blemishes, as it will also help with prevention) along with calamine lotion applied directly to the more stubborn blemishes, and you should have clean, clear skin in no time! Just keep up the preventative measure even after your blemishes are gone, so you don’t get new ones.

How Vitamin C Helps Hair – Vine Vera Reviews

Good hair is an important part of looking your best, as you’ve no doubt noticed and agonized over the fact that tangled, dry, splitting, or frizzy hair detracts from your overall appearance. Sadly, hair can be frustratingly difficult to care for at times, stubbornly retaining irritating issues regardless of how many products and techniques you try, and as such, you might be tempted to simply accept frizz, dryness, unruly behavior, or damage as a fact of life, and learn to live with it through a combination of resignation and quick fixes.

Fortunately for you, though, you don’t necessarily have to. As it turns out, the same multitasking miracle ingredient for skin care and general health and well-being also plays a seriously helpful role in keeping your hair glowing and healthy. That’s right: Vitamin C is as quintessential to hair-care as it is skin care. In light of this, Vine Vera decided it would be prudent to explain how and why vitamin C is so important for good hair, and how you can make it work for you.

Hair Growth and Damage Prevention
Consuming Vitamin C, whether through supplements, diet, or both (it’s recommended you take 500 mg daily for maximum benefit) can actually increase the amount of hair growth you’re able to achieve, in addition to — or more accurately, because of — the fact that vitamin C prevents free radicals (produced when your body metabolizes food) from damaging hair as it grows, meaning that while you have high blood levels of vitamin C, the new hair that comes out of your follicles will be stronger and less prone to breaking from the beginning. This will ensure that it is capable of reaching much greater lengths, since it will be far less likely to break before reaching its full potential.

Hair Loss and Thinning Prevention
Higher blood levels of vitamin C also prevents long-term hair loss and thinning. Vitamin C helps keep adrenal glands from getting fatigued, and adrenal gland fatigue is a major factor in hair loss with age. Vitamin C also helps regulate blood flow and strengthen and repair blood vessels, which—when concerning blood flow in the scalp specifically—results in thicker and stronger hair.

Prevents Graying
Yes, you read that right. In addition to all the other amazing hair-related benefits of vitamin C, it also happens to keep your hair from going gray! Vitamin C slows the aging process in the body as a whole, and of course, part of that process is going gray, so it stands to reason that this amazingly versatile vitamin would prevent that as well.

What Are You Waiting for?
Now that you’re aware of the benefits vitamin C holds for your luscious locks (and don’t forget that it’s beneficial for your health in general too!), you should be doing two things. first off, make sure you consume lots of vitamin C every day. You can use a supplement to achieve this, but eat as much vitamin C-rich foods — like citrus fruit and dark, leafy greens — as you can in addition to this.

Secondly, look for hair care products which contain vitamin C as an ingredient! After all, if it’s so beneficial to both your health and beauty when ingested, what do you think it can accomplish when applied to a targeted area like your hair?

Vitamin C as an Antioxidant and More – Vine Vera Reviews

It’s no secret—and Vine Vera has certainly made mention of it—that vitamin C is essential for health and general well being; when ingested or otherwise absorbed into the body, it boosts immunity and benefits the cardiovascular system, eyes, and even prenatal health. When applied topically to the skin, it brightens discolorations, nourishes, and smooths wrinkles (which, incidentally, is why Vine Vera has a collection of products that feature Vitamin C as a key ingredient).

But did you know that vitamin C also acts as an antioxidant? Yes, you read that right, vitamin C, the essential vitamin, immune boosting supplement, and wrinkle-defying, sun spot-brightening powerhouse ingredient to skincare and cosmetics also happens to work alongside other powerful antioxidants like resveratrol to fend off nasty free radicals and slow aging in its tracks. In fact, vitamin C has so many health benefits—both when ingested and used in skin care products—that Vine Vera saw fit to compile a list of them for your benefit.

Essential Mineral and Antioxidant
Regular ingestion of vitamin C is essential for survival. It’s an electron donor, which makes it a potent water-soluble antioxidant. Antioxidants help prevent cell degradation and death due to free radicals, pesky little particles that contribute largely to the aging process. As an essential mineral, vitamin C is necessary for metabolism and everyday bodily function. As an antioxidant, whether ingested or applied topically, it tends to—like other antioxidants—prolong the life of individual cells, decreasing the rate of cell death, thereby slowing down the aging process and keeping you feeling young and vigorous.

In light of the fact that vitamin C also acts as an antioxidant, consider this: Vine Vera has an entire collection of products that contain ample amounts of both vitamin C and the super-powered antioxidant resveratrol.

Immune Booster
Research into the effects of vitamin C is still in progress, but so far it’s incredibly promising. Studies have shown that vitamin C contributes to an increase in overall health, and can help the body fight against heart disease, stroke, eyesight problems, and even cancer. It’s actually recommended you take a supplement to achieve about 500 mg of vitamin C daily for the maximum benefit; currently established daily values for vitamin C are based on its necessity as an essential mineral, but even higher quantities than are necessary for simple survival can be beneficial in numerous ways. Further, vitamin C is water-soluble, and this means there is less risk from taking more than the required daily value. The safe upper limit for vitamin C intake is 2,000 mg in a day.

Skin Brightener
Another great property of vitamin C? When applied topically, it brightens dark spots and other discolorations, and evens out skin tone for an overall healthy-looking glow that lasts. As such, when used in skincare products like Vine Vera’s vitamin C collection, it’s pulling double-duty as a brightener and antioxidant! Such topical applications of vitamin C products can be more targeted; while taking vitamin C supplements or getting it through your diet (such as by eating lots of citrus fruit) is hugely beneficial to your overall health, applying it topically can specifically target your skin, applying all of vitamin C’s wonderful benefits right where you want them.