INSIDE OUT

If you are what you eat, the following titles promise it can be beautiful – with the right foods, a healthy gut and mindful living.

1

In The Beauty Chef: Delicious Food for Radiant Skin, Gut Health and Wellbeing (Raincoast), bestselling author Carla Oates promotes good gut health for “a clearer, more radiant complexion and general wellbeing.” In addition to fermented foods, pre- and probiotics, Oates includes beauty nutrients in the book’s 150plus recipes. They include pantothenic acid (vitamin B ) – protects against 5 wrinkles; vitamin K – helps prevent 2 premature aging; and silica, essential in forming skin-firming collagen. For a recipe featuring asparagus, a source of the mineral silica, turn the page.

2

From fine lines and cellulite to thinning hair, Eat for Beauty (DK) has food fixers for the face, body, hair, hands, feet and even oral health. Meal plans include the best foods to banish baggy eyes, as an example, for which celery is suggested: it’s a fluid regulator that can help reduce puffiness. Nutrition needs by age is also addressed: shrinking oil glands can result in dryer, more brittle hair starting in our 50s. To counter these effects, sources of omega-3 fats and protein, such as flaxseed and oily fish, are recommended.

3

With a holistic perspective is The Thirlby: A Field Guide to a Vibrant Mind, Body and Soul (Prestel). Author Almila Kaking-Dodd is also an integrative medicine practitioner and tackles everything from taming anxiety to zero-waste living. As a part of mindful nutrition, she encourages eating organic, local and seasonal, as much as possible. Her Beauty Bites include recipes with broad health merits. Bone Broth, for example, is extolled for “an arsenal of properties to support longevity.” As she points out, the gelatin released from boiling bones is gut healing and inflammation calming as well as a source of collagen. —Tara Losinski