The Superfoods List for Healthy Skin

What the nutrients in these foods are documented to do for skin — and what diet can and cannot change.

What we eat shows up in our skin, though more slowly and less dramatically than the internet tends to suggest. Skin is built and repaired from the same nutrients as the rest of you, so what you eat is one input among several — alongside sleep, sun exposure, genetics, and, for anything that persists, a dermatologist. No shopping list replaces any of those. What a nutrient-dense diet does is make sure the raw materials are actually there. Here are some of the superfoods worth keeping in the rotation. 

Below is what each one actually contains, and what those nutrients are documented to do.

Avocados

Avocados are nutrient-dense and high in unsaturated fat. This fruit supplies vitamins C, E, K and B6, as well as riboflavin, niacin, folate, pantothenic acid, magnesium and potassium. Vitamins C and E are both antioxidants, which is why they turn up in almost every conversation about skin: vitamin C contributes to the normal formation of collagen for the normal function of skin, and vitamin E contributes to the protection of cells from oxidative stress. They also carry lutein and beta-carotene, and biotin — one of the B vitamins, which contributes to the maintenance of normal skin.

Tomatoes

Tomatoes are a good source of vitamin C, which contributes to the normal formation of collagen for the normal function of skin. They are also high in lycopene, the carotenoid that gives them their color and one of the more heavily studied dietary antioxidants. Here is something genuinely useful for meal planning rather than for a skincare routine: cooked tomatoes — passata, sauce, roasted halves — make more of their lycopene available than raw ones do, and a little olive oil alongside helps, because lycopene is fat-soluble.

Spinach

Spinach is a good source of vitamin C, which contributes to the normal formation of collagen for the normal function of skin. According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), a 100-gram serving of spinach contains 28.1 milligrams of vitamin C, 34 percent of the daily recommendation. Spinach also supplies vitamin A, which contributes to the maintenance of normal skin, along with a range of dietary antioxidants.

Moringa­

Moringa leaf is a notably concentrated source of beta-carotene, which the body converts into vitamin A — and vitamin A contributes to the maintenance of normal skin. It also contains vitamin E, which contributes to the protection of cells from oxidative stress, and oleic acid, an omega fatty acid — the latter mostly in the seed oil rather than in the leaf.

Chia seeds

Chia seeds are one of the richer plant sources of alpha-linolenic acid, a plant omega-3, and they absorb several times their weight in water, which is what makes them gel. Chia seeds also carry vitamin A, vitamin C, iron and potassium, and they are one of the highest-fiber things you can stir into a bowl of anything — which is reason enough to keep a jar of them on the shelf whatever your skin is doing.

What food can and can’t do here

Diet is one input into how skin looks, and it is the slowest-acting one. Skin cells turn over on a timescale of weeks, so nothing you eat shows up overnight, and no single ingredient is doing the work on its own. Persistent acne, eczema, an unexplained rash, or anything painful or spreading is a matter for a doctor or a dermatologist rather than for a shopping list. What a varied, nutrient-dense diet does is make sure the vitamins and fats your skin is built from are available to it — a smaller and more honest promise than the one usually made, and one worth acting on anyway.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.