Foods for Shiny (& Perhaps Less Brittle) Hair

Looking for the "how to" on shiny hair?  Hair care products may provide some temporary help, but I am finding out there that diet has more to do with getting long term natural shine than any hair care "product," which may only give you a temporary, quick fix shine.  For long term shine (that's real) it is an ever giving result of a healthy body.  Of course, different hair types and amount of oil secretion differ person to person, but eating certain foods may maximize or at least improve your shine.  (Not sure whether this information would help one grow more hair (for the curious men out there)??  But at least this post should help you prevent your hair from getting brittle and weak if it is not genetic). 
 
Here are a few foods that help make your hair more shiny:

1) Eggs.  I love eggs, and have been eating them more and more over the last couple of years. The yolk is extremely nutritious to the body.  For one, it consists a great deal of choline, which actually prevents the accumulation of cholesterol and fat in the liver.  When it comes to hair, vitamin B12 and protein in eggs penetrate into the root and hair follicles to repair and nourish hair.  Eggs also contain biotin, which is really good for skin and hair.  Consider the egg to be one of your top beauty agents found in nature.

2) Citrus. Foods that are super high in vitamin C like citrus fruits, oranges, lemons, pomegranetes (oh yum!) are great for your hair because the rich vitamin C content is used in the formation of collagen. Vitamin C foods, have been known to protect hair from free radicals that may damage hair, causing it to become brittle and weak. The University of Maryland Medical Center reports that vitamin C can be used to help treat and prevent hair disorders such as alopecia. They say that low intake of vitamin C in a person's diet may lead to splitting or dry hair related conditions.  Yikes!  Vitamin C it is! 

3) Seafood.  Natural oils are very beneficial for shiny hair, especially the ones found in fish, shellfish, and other seafood. Salmon and tuna are rich in natural oils that are not only amazing for your hair but also work to rejuvenate skin.  Seafood is naturally high in protein and vitamin B, which are both important to nourishing the hair.

4) Legumes.  Beans and nuts are hearty, rich in flavor, and provide many benefits to your hair and scalp.  Foods like peanuts, kidney beans, chick peas, and other similar foods are also full of natural oils.  Natural oils moisturize your hair and scalp.  Why not ditch the harsh chemical products that could have long term detrimental effects on your body and your skin, and go the natural food way?!

Stay away from foods that contain a lot of fat and sugars. 

Other related posts: Ode to Mr. Strong and Eggs, Pumping Iron with Mollusks

Source: www.associatedcontent.com, www.livestrong.com

Fake Egg Alarm?!

Many of you know of my love for eggs from my previous posts, and that I find Not Every Egg is Laid Equal.  But here in this post, you will find that some eggs are MADE very unequally, in a very literal (and enraging) sense.  At lunch today, one friend (thanks Jeanie!) brought up an incredibly disturbing, vile piece of news that in certain parts of China, there are people who man-make eggs!  They use a concoction of gelatin and chemicals to form the yolk, the white and it hardens to a shell.  And they say that it was because the materials were cheaper than actually raising a chicken to lay the egg.  The poor Chinese consumers who buy them and actually use them without knowing that they are about to consume a botch of harmful chemicals.  Simply outrageous. 
 
This video was from a few years ago, so I hope that things have changed, but be forewarned, especially when you are visiting China, that this is a possibility.  Of course, not every egg from China is fake, but better to be on the lookout for any suspicious egg formations.   

They say that a couple of ways to detect whether an egg is fake is to see whether the egg white is runny like water and whether there is a membrane layer beneath the egg shell.  The fake ones do not have the membrane layer beneath the shell. 

Investigation of fake eggs in China. by FujiTV, from YouTube

Not Every Egg is Laid Equal

Related to my previous post on eating pasture-fed chickens, I have also eaten those chicken’s eggs.  Wowsers.  These eggs are awesome.  I mean really, we are all missing out if we don’t have a source.

What does a super fresh, pasture-fed chicken egg look like?  For sure, they are different from grocery found eggs.  Ever notice, that a hard-boiled grocery egg has a pale yellow color yolk?  The eggs that I ate have orange color yolks.  The color is orange yellow, very vibrant compared to the pale yellow.  The egg shells of pasture-fed are also thicker.  Grocery eggs typically have very thin shells.

What the chicken eats will determine the kind of eggs she lays.  Better taste and perhaps better nutrients come from diets that that include other things besides corn. 

Freshness is also a factor.  I have been guilty of eating overdue, old eggs.  They don’t seem to go bad, but now I have noticed, that after you hard-boil old eggs, there is a big divot on one of the ends.  Really fresh eggs don’t have this air pocket that forms when boiled. 

I looked around online, and there is a buoyancy test for the freshness of your eggs.  This is the same concept as the air pocket discovery, except the test lets you know before you cook.  Basically, if your raw egg sinks to the bottom in a bowl of water, it is fresh (no air pocket has formed in the egg).  If the raw egg lies on its side in the water or kind of bobs, the egg is not as fresh.  If the egg floats on the surface of the water, then it should be discarded.

For more information:

http://recipehut.homestead.com/FreshEggTest.html

http://southernfood.about.com/library/howto/hteggsfresh.htm

Ode to Mr. Strong and Eggs.

 

Remember Mr. Strong?  I loved the Mr. Men series by Roger Hargreaves as a kid.  I think growing up, I would try to borrow every book in the series at the library.  My most formidable memory from these books was just how Mr. Strong loved eggs and ate them all the time!  He was so strong from eating eggs.  And, my mom and grandma always said, you can eat one egg a day, it’s good for you, especially while you are young.

Awesome, gets me closer to living like Mr. Strong.

But then as I got older, there was a long period of time (and I guess it still exists) when people were saying how eggs were bad for cholesterol and not to be consumed often.  And gradually, my egg consumption declined…to virtually only times I went out for brunch, which didn’t amount to that often.

Well, times (and knowledge) are a changin’, and my understanding today is that eggs are good for one’s health.  According to multiple sources (see a few below), eggs are a highly nutritious food, probably the most nutritious that money can buy.  Each egg only contains 75 calories, and yet eggs provide all the essential amino acids and minerals required by the human body, and supply vitamins A, B, and D.  Bargain eating is what I look for – low calories for a lot of nutrients, and eggs totally qualify.  There is a belief that egg yolks lead to high cholesterol levels.  I keep reading/finding that egg yolks may actually lower total body levels of low-density lipoprotein (undesirable cholesterol), while raising levels of high-density lipoprotein (or good cholesterol).  We’ll leave it to the nutritionists to battle that out.

I often eat boiled eggs as part of my meals – it actually goes well with Asian food.  Or, put some salt and pepper and just that alone makes for a great snack. 

Source: Keeping Chickens, by Jeremy Hobson and Celia Lewis

Another source: http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=92