The Kitchen/Skin Connection
OK, Kim, Beat these Selfies
Fruit and yogurt as a facial, add grapes for smooth skin, avocado for dry skin,
We have talked a lot about microorganisms, what some call probiotics, or things that promote life.
Well, humans need these too. Even your skin should normally be populated with friendly flora, or bacteria that help the skin fight off bad bacteria, and help break down old dead skin.
While it sounds gross, this really is important to healthy skin but it gets very little attention, partly because you can’t keep these on the self at the cosmetics counter, but you do have them in the kitchen.
Take a little yogurt, preferably unflavored or at least just vanilla, and blend in a few grapes. The enzymes in the grapes help break down dead skin and help clear the skin pores.
Use this as a facial. Allow it to sit on the skin for 5 to 20 minutes and then wash it off. Do not use an anti-biotic skin soap as you will be killing the organisms you just returned to the skin.
It is understood that what you eat affects the amount of acne you experience. This is a place where diet and hormones interact. It is fatty food, excessive starch and sugar consumption that can aggravate acne. The good news is that these same foods we put on the skin are also good if you simply consume them.
Now, think about this for a minute.
When you eat food it enters the digestive system which is lined with specialized cells called epithelial cells. There are different kind and the serve different jobs, but one of the things they do is absorb nutrients and even chemicals.
Technically, everything on one side of epithelial cells is outside of the body, so food doesn’t enter the body until it is digested and passes through the epithelial cells. So, again, technically, the food, then called chime, is not inside the body, rather, surrounded by a body part. But this can be stated differently also and it is still true. The various epithelial cells, or epithelium, are the cells that define what is inside and what is outside of the body.
That’s interesting, but does it apply to our skin, that is, what is inside and outside, because normally we think of things, say, that are outside our skin to be outside the body. Our cloths, or something farther away is outside the body.
Why, yes, it is true there also. The skin is epithelium also, that is it is epithelial cells.
One of the things epithelial cells do is absorb things.
Forgive the protracted physiology lesson, but there are two kinds of absorption, active and inactive. This is true of roots also, and why humates help roots with active diffusion through the membrane of the root, but here let’s return to epithelium.
Epithelial cells absorb by active diffusion, that is the use of enzymes and organic chemicals that attach to nutrient and carry them across the membrane, and this is especially true in the gut, and by passive diffusion.
Passive diffusion is called osmosis.
Reverse osmosis, used to purify water and other liquids reverses the direction because it forces water away from the concentrated fluid into a less concentrated fluid. In other words, it forces, by pressure, water to flow away from a concentrates salt solution of water. That is the reverse, or the opposite of passive diffusion. If you simply lowered the pressure, the water would passively diffuse across the membrane in the other direction, and that is one of the things the skins does also.
The skin absorbs nutrients or concentrated chemicals. This is why a nicotine patch works. The skin absorbs the nicotine. This is why cosmetic companies are now putting nutrients like vitamin E and Vitamin C into skin cream. This is why you wear gloves when handling chemicals. So be careful what you put on your skin. A small amount of it will go into the body. That is the nature of the skin.
Statues of John Neill
Sinus Infections? Try an Onion
A good friend has a mechanical problem in the sinus area. He continually had a buildup of mucus in the upper sinus area. This would then turn into an infected sinus and he would feel horrible for days or weeks. These happened several times every year.
Well, I do recall eating too much onion in a homemade burger and having my sinuses drain almost immediately and for quite a while I could breathe almost too clearly.
How can you breathe too clearly? The mucus has a purpose, it slows the air, warms it, and traps bacteria and other particles in the air to keep them out of your lungs. That is in the ideal world, or at least the average world where people do not have any disorder changing that order. So, having sinuses that were very clear gave breathing a unique sensation as everything clears out due to this little garden vegetable that adds so much flavor.
So, I suggested buying a mild white or purple onion, pealing it, then eating it like an apple.
Yes, it was a radical step, and yes, it does hurt a little the first few times before you adjust to it, but it also worked beautifully. His sinuses cleared and we prevented a recurring sinus infection and the medications associated with them.
Are onions endowed with magical healing powers? No, but they are endowed with the ability to clear the sinuses in less than five minutes preventing days or weeks of infections. So, which would you rather endure, a few minutes of way too much onion, or a few days or weeks of sinus infection and medications?
Pineapple, grapes, papaya face peal
If you live in Hawaii or other tropical areas you might have pineapple in your yard, it is likely you have papaya growing. If you live in a more moderate climate, you may have grapes. These are usually available in the grocery store if not from your yard.
Regardless of the source, the enzymes in these fruits are excellent for the skin. Especially for teens and twenty-something people.
Virtually any combination of these fruits blended together into a mush will act as a great face peal, and, if you have too much, you can eat the rest of it!
Add some oatmeal if it needs some extra body, and then it can be used as a very gentle face scrub.
These fruits and others contain photolytic enzymes. The word means, enzymes that digest proteins. The skin is mostly a protein complex of collagen and keratin. These enzymes help to break this down and thus unplug you pores to help the skin breath and regenerate fresh, new skin.