Did you know that eating fruits and vegetables improve your skin tone? I didn’t know this information until my friend pointed it out one day while I was eating carrots. She told me that carrots could turn your skin to an orange color. At first I didn’t believe her, however, after asking Google, I found out that eating fruits and vegetables does in fact slightly change your skin color. I was amazed at this fact and I wanted to learn more on this topic.
I found out that the main reason skin color can change is due to carotenoids. Carotenoids are known to be powerful antioxidant substances playing an essential role in the reactions of neutralization of free radicals. Our human skin, on the other hand, is constantly under the influence of free radicals. Therefore, we can find carotenoids most closely associated with our skin. Carotenoids are found in a variety of fruits and vegetable, especially in those that are red, orange, and green in color. When we eat fruits and vegetables with carotenoids, we can assume that our skin tone can have a slight change due to the carotenoids being closely associated with our skin.
According to Huffington post, an experiment had been done to see if fruits and vegetable consumption changed the redness and yellowness of the people’s skin. Researchers examined 35 white university students between the ages of 18 and 25 for a period of six weeks. These students then answered questions about their vegetable intake and researchers recorded their skin-color. As a result, study found that students who ate the most produce turned yellower than those eating pizza and fries; the students eating vegetables looked slightly rosier.
From the experiment, we cannot assume correlation causes causation and there is always the possibility of chance. Even though the experiment showed that it is very likely that carotenoids can change our skin tone slightly, but there are still other factors to consider. To start off, the experiment preformed is not perfect. The sample size of 35 university students is very small. Also, the data collected might not be accurate. The experimenters were not given a specific meal; instead the study was based on their own eating habits. The study is also biased because all the university students in the experiment were white. Would the skin tone change for people in other races? Confounding variables also play apart in this case. A person getting sick during the time period and not sleeping well can also have an affect on skin color.
As a result based on the study, I would say it is very hard to conclude that eating fruits and vegetables will definitely improve our skin tones.
Change in skin color
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/08/veggies-change-skin-tone_n_1324549.html
http://www.carotenoidsociety.org/article/04/52
I was planning on writing about this during this blog period because of my sister. She is very pale with flaming red hair and never ever tans despite her 50% Italian ethnic background. The only time i know of that she has had color to her skin was when she was a baby and my parents would feed her carrot baby food. They freaked out at first when her pale white skin was turning orange, but after consulting her pediatrician, they were told that this was completely normal especially in babies. Even though this is only an anecdote, I believe the hypothesis is supported by medical knowledge from the doctor.