This week’s topic is: The Skin Connection: Healthy Foods That Help Clear and Heal Your Skin
Listen in as Kimberly Snyder discusses the importance of healthy skin and its connection to overall well-being. Kimberly speaks to the role of food, stress, sleep, and other factors in maintaining vibrant skin. The conversation covers various skin conditions and their relationship to diet, including the benefits of omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants, and low glycemic diets. Kimberly also highlights the negative effects of dairy, alcohol, and spicy foods on the skin. She provides tips for hydration, skincare, sleep, and stress management to promote healthy skin.
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Erica – Massachusetts
This winter has been so rough on my skin, more than usual. It looks dull and lifeless. Could it be the foods I’m eating?
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Transcript:
Note: The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate. This is due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
Kimberly Snyder (00:01.046)
Namaste loves and welcome back to our Thursday Q &A show. Today we’re going to be talking about our skin, which is our largest organ and specifically the skin connection, healthy foods that help clear and heal your skin. So as always, we love to talk about all these topics in an interrelated way, how the cornerstones work together. So our skin is something that we see every day. Of course we want to have healthy.
vibrant skin, everyone else sees our skin, we see our own skin when we look in the mirror. Our skin is an incredibly important part of our wellbeing. It plays a part in our nervous system regulation. Our uveic medicine is very emphatic about working with the skin when we’re working to soothe the body through massage. Our skin gives a picture into our vitality, into our prana, the distribution of
nutrients, our circulation, how healthy we are in general. And today we’re going to be talking about foods, but we’re also going to expand out a bit as we always do to talk about the role of stress, the role of sleep, other aspects of healthy skin, because everything works synergistically together. And even seeing between foods and skin, we’re talking about crossing over from food into our body. So,
As always, I like to emphasize that food is not just a collection of numbers. We don’t want to reduce it down to just trying to count how many carbs we’re eating or how many grams of sugar. That’s not going to deeply nourish us. We want to look at foods in terms of energy and energetics and assimilating. What do we want to eat? What do we want to take in that’s going to be part of our energy? And when we look at food that way, it becomes, to me,
more exciting, it also becomes simpler because we can use our intuition. We don’t have to get bogged down with a bunch of confusing studies necessarily or a bunch of confusing charts or numbers. We can start to use our intuition and start to approach food from this energetic standpoint, just like we want to build intuition when it comes to our career choices or how we parent.
Kimberly Snyder (02:22.638)
or the people that we wanna spend more time with. These all are factors which add to our wellbeing, to our energy. And I am so excited to get into research and specific foods and tips today to build that beautiful skin. I’ll also say quickly that I’ve gone through quite a journey with my own skin. I was sharing them this last week with my personal journey in hair.
And this is what drew me into wellness in the first place. When we have challenges, anxiety, insomnia, acne, weight gain, bloating, my hair not growing, these were warning signs calling out to me that there’s some deeper imbalance inside of me. And it really was this multi -pronged approach with changing my diet. That was the foundation for my
wellness change. And now I’ve expanded the work. I talk about meditation a lot. I talk about spirituality, connecting to the true self, all of it relates. But food remains close to my heart because for me, the tangible physicality of food was my pathway in. And to this day, it’s become very simple. I know how to eat. But if my eating is off,
My whole mood can be off, my energy is off and I will surely see a difference in my skin. So food is foundational. We need to eat every day unless we’re fasting for some reason. And we want to make sure that we’re making the best choices. Little reminder before we go deeper in that I will be linking this research over on our show notes at mysolluna.com
as well as you will find hundreds, maybe thousands of plant -based recipes, which are very related to this topic. They certainly do include the beauty foods that we will be talking about today specifically. I’ll also link to other shows I think you would enjoy. We’ve covered different aspects of skin from a holistic standpoint, an argumentative standpoint, an herbal standpoint, and so on. So you can check it out over there.
Kimberly Snyder (04:44.11)
And there’s also guided meditations to help you feel more calm and centered, which is a huge part of skin health because when we’re afraid, when we’re reactive, that also shows up in our skin. Cortisol production leads to more wrinkling of the skin, hormone imbalance isn’t great for your skin. All of this affects everything else. So please check out the show notes. All right, let’s kick it off here.
Our question comes today from Erica in Massachusetts. Erica, thank you so much for being part of our community. Over there on the East Coast, I’m sending you a big warm hug. I also grew up on the East Coast. I know what it’s like to have those long winters, months and months of winter time and coldness. I remember just…
having that redness in my face a lot of the time, that cold redness in my hands. So anyways, I can certainly understand as you write, this winter has been so rough on my skin, more than usual. It looks dull and lifeless. Could it be the foods that I’m eating? So thank you once again, Erica, for bringing this forward. This is a time.
where our skin can definitely need some more care, some more attention, some more love. When winter is around, we’re still in winter, spring is coming around the corner, but there’s a lot of factors. There’s the dryness, there’s heaters, there’s dehydration, there’s a lack of fresh air and the natural beautiful circulation of being outside more. I think that has a major effect on our skin as well.
There’s also a tendency to eat at restaurants more, to maybe eat less than ideal choices. So all of it affects, right? We tend to, you know, our lifestyle obviously shifts with each season, just like our clothes shift. So accordingly, we want to shift our foods. We want to shift how we’re approaching our lifestyle, our wellbeing in general. And the good news though, is that the skin, just like every other part of our body is,
Kimberly Snyder (07:02.382)
so highly intelligent and dynamic. The skin can come back and the skin can come back much faster than the body, than the hair, actually, but to see the hair because the skin is overturning every month, every 24, 28 days or so. You could start to make these changes. You will start to see a difference in your complexion, in your glow. And I’ve noticed this with clients in as little as three days, I’ve seen a profound difference. So,
Let’s get into some of the research and then I want to talk about some powerful foods that are going to help. And when we talk about skin conditions to clear, to smooth the skin, there’s the general dullness, right? That we all experience from time to time. There’s dryness, there is rosacea and sort of patchiness, rashes, there’s acne, there is…
uh, psoriasis, and there’s general aging. When we see, of course, you know, there’s nothing wrong with aging. These are the beautiful cycles of life. It’s like a garden that continues to deepen into deeper fruition. But when there’s premature aging or when there’s excessive, um, dryness that, you know, and we just see fine lines where, you know, when the reason past there weren’t any.
we can see that there’s more nourishment that can definitely be had. And what’s exciting is the Journal of Clinical and Aesthetic Dermatology found a relationship between diet and various skin conditions, including acne, aging, rosacea, and psoriasis. And what they found was some of the most positive dietary factors included omega -3 fatty acids,
antioxidants and low glycemic diets. The Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology in 2021 also found that a low glycemic diet had a significant improvement on rosacea. So let’s pause there for a moment. I love that this is being studied.
Kimberly Snyder (09:19.918)
Right, we all know that energy is energy. Everything is coming in. It changes form. We’ve been making a lot of fires lately in my home. I love to sit around the hearth and meditate in front of the fire. And I love to watch the fire. I love to make the fire. And I put the, you know, a little bit of the twigs underneath. It goes into the larger branches. It goes into the bigger branches.
And I love to see that transmutation happen, that transformation, the fire comes, this energy comes, and then the embers come, and then eventually the ash, right? So the wood is changing form. And it reminds me of this agony, this digestive fire. That’s what’s happening when we’re eating foods in a sense, in a symbolic sense, they’re coming in.
and they’re being transmuted through the power of our digestion. And then they’re becoming, in essence, it’s energetically contributing to our essence. And when we really deeply consider that, not just, oh yeah, you know, I am what I eat, whatever, but when we really take that in, we can start to make very different intentional choices. We can start to really look.
at that plate of food. It’s not about being perfect, but for me, this was the turning point when I really started to become aware of energy. And I started to really consider the deeply fried French fries, which used to be one of my favorite foods. And I would reason with myself, oh, if I’ve eaten lower calories,
then I deserve to have this treat. But when I would start to look at the French fries and I would consider that they were in these fryers with really inflammatory oils, and that was going to be part of my energy and that was going to inflame and age my skin and my organs, it started to transcend this numbers game for me. It started to transcend, oh, I need this treat. What if that treat is actually creating a lot of damage?
Kimberly Snyder (11:36.654)
And so again, it’s not about, oh, I need to track every single thing that’s in my mouth. I like treats too. I still have, you know, we love coconut ice cream in my home and I love chocolate treats and I’ll have birthday cake and all sorts of things. I love chips still, but it’s far, far, far less. And I love eating fresh berries and foods that are healthy and taste great because I know this energetic connection.
So that’s what’s being studied here. What we eat is going to have an effect on our skin. This isn’t just, you know, it reinforces our intuition, but it’s not just coming from our, you know, our intuitional ideas. It’s actually been studied from a medical standpoint. So let’s break down some of these foods that were studied. Omega -3 fatty acids. We want healthy fats.
We want to nourish our skin with these beautiful healthy fats. And also last week with our hair show, which I encourage you to go back and listen to or watch. We’re also here, I’m waving on YouTube if you want to watch me in my little space here next to my meditation space in my office. This is my couch, or couch banquette area where podcast guests come and sit with me when they’re here in person.
And when people come in for meetings, this is where we sit. I love this area. I love to share it with you. You can also listen to it. Continue to just listen to it if that’s more convenient for you. Of course, on Apple or Spotify, wherever. Anyways, I was speaking last week about the importance of seeds, specifically seeds and nuts and how wonderful pumpkin seeds are for your hair. There was research around pumpkin oil, pumpkin seed oil and pumpkin seeds.
having at least four or so a day, it doesn’t have to be a huge amount, it can really have an impact. And so when it comes to our skin as well, seeds are some of the most incredible sources of omega -3 fats. I’m a very regular, almost daily chia seed consumer. I put them in my Power Protein smoothie, which of late has been a daily smoothie. It’s back in the flow on a daily basis. I also have, or I’m an advocate of,
Kimberly Snyder (13:55.214)
Sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, walnuts are also in heavy rotation over here. I’m not as much of a flax seed consumer, but flax seeds are also a wonderful source of healthy fats. I also do take a daily EPA DHA supplement. I think that supplementing with a omega -3 supplement can be really great insurance, just to make sure our bodies are getting the proper amount every day.
This is absolutely essential if you are pregnant or if you are trying to conceive. And in the months before conception, as we’ll be discussing in our conception course, finally coming out this spring, you want to put your body in really powerful position. And what’s interesting is that research shows now that…
95 % of women in the perinatal phase have some sort of nutrient deficiencies. So we want to fortify the body, we want to fortify our skin. So Omega -3 fats, again, take your DHA EPA supplement, potentially, but definitely get seeds and nuts in your diet. There are also healthy fats, of course, in avocados and coconuts. I just think healthy fats in general are really important to nourish.
keep our skin nice and moist. Walnuts were a top beauty food all the way back from Beauty Detox Foods, my second book. And I stand by that to this day, especially in winter. Erica and my friends that are concerned about dryness in the skin, add some of those beautiful mineral rich walnuts back in. Also antioxidants. We hear this term tossed around a lot and it’s wonderful.
We want antioxidants, we don’t want to get, you know, sort of bored of this term and what it really means to have these colorful veggies and fruits in our diet on a regular basis. Dietary fats come and go. But what holds up in communities around longevity, if we look at the blue zones, if we look at the really healthy communities, they’re eating lots of colorful plant foods.
Kimberly Snyder (16:13.966)
They’re eating fruits and they’re eating vegetables both. So what I like to do is I like to rotate. I like to have fun. I eat very simple snacks with my kids. We love sprouted hummus and veggies, but one week I’ll make it cauliflower. Another week, last week it was snap peas. My kids, we play a lot of board games. I just put colorful carrots in front of them, celery sticks.
oranges, apples, I mean, just bring in the colors. This doesn’t have to be onerous. It doesn’t have to feel like exacting. I just encourage lots of different ones, right? We’re into the berry season. We grow blackberries here and raspberries in the yard. Oranges, we have lots of orange trees. If you can grow some of your food, that’s also a wonderful thing to do.
There’s a wonderful company called Let Us Grow and they have these vegetable stands. It looks really, really beautiful. So that’s something I encourage as well. Low glycemic diets. So when it comes to the glycemic load and the glycemic index, what we’re looking for is foods that are metabolizing well and not giving you a spike.
So what we want to avoid is the flowers, the white flour, the sugars, and stick to more whole foods. Let’s keep it really simple. Whole grains, whole veggies, whole fruit instead of fruit juices. And only on the plains do my kids get juice. By the way, we never buy it. We never have it at home. It’s not there, not available.
And on special occasions, like sometimes if we go to a restaurant or things like that, but my kids do eat a lot of fruit, water and fruit. That’s what we got here. Same thing for adults. Whole grains, right? We cook quinoa, we cook millet, we cook rice, both white rice, brown rice. I recently wrote an article about rice and how brown rice and white rice both have advantages. Jasmine rice.
Kimberly Snyder (18:25.358)
Particularly basmati rice are considered satvic foods and the Ayurvedic system, great sources of energy. They’re lower in arsenic and certain heavy metals. Of course, I encourage you to sprout, soak your rice overnight if possible before cooking it, which removes a lot of the heavy metals and toxins anyway. It’s a great way to remove as well. So whole grains, just eat whole foods and this is gonna be wonderful for your skin.
It’s great for rosacea. But not just, when I say rosacea, we see that certain people have more of a triggering effect in these specific conditions, but I think it’s great across the board. Other factors that were considered triggering to the skin, this is from the Journal of American Academy of Dermatology, included dairy products, alcohol, and certain spicy foods. And this again, we all have specific…
conditions. Some people are more sensitive than others. I know that when I was in college, I’ll tell you guys a funny story, and I would drink quite heavily at times back in my partying days and I would have beer, I would have vodka, and I would get this rash and my friends called it PRR, Filipino Red Rash. I’m half Filipina. And it was this incredibly red effect. And
Whether it was the alcohol, the gluten in the beer, a combination, whatever it was, it just seared my skin. And so some people are more sensitive to others. I know now, even if I have a glass of wine, which I rarely have, I will get quite flushed. The dairy is definitely something that triggers dullness and it’s difficult to digest for a lot of us. I’m so happy there are so many wonderful dairy alternatives today. Almost every…
coffee shop or most coffee shops thankfully have non -dairy milks, whether that’s oat or almond or coconut or soy, choose the non -dairy alternatives. It’s better for the cows, the plants, the environment, the animals. It’s better for your skin. Some people digest dairy much better than others, but I’m a big believer in non -dairy milks.
Kimberly Snyder (20:48.078)
Calcium is quite high in almond milk and some of the other varieties and it’s just a lighter load, easier to digest for most all of us for different reasons. Also, the Journal of American Academy of Dermatology found a connection between dairy consumption and acne. And this was specifically in teenagers and what they looked at across the board was whole milk, low -fat milk,
Chocolate milk. So basically any type of dairy, it wasn’t about the fat, it was about the actual dairy. So we could assume the proteins in the dairy, the the constitution of the dairy beyond the actual content of the fat was clogging to the skin. I used to be a huge cheese consumer and when I cut out cheese, and now we love plant -based cheeses, there’s lots of cashew cheese, I love the kite hail, which is based in almonds, the cream cheeses. When I cut out dairy, it was,
transformational to my skin. So if you have a teenager or you’re looking for your own skin to look brighter, look to some sneaky sources of dairy. Are you still putting it in your coffee every day? I had a client, celebrity client I was working with recently and he was trying to justify that morning.
his coffee and his milk and then he was complaining about his digestive issues and I said, you know, that does add up. It’s not about being perfect, but do a little bit of research. He didn’t like the way coconut creamer tasted. So, you know, we’re trying different things. There are alternatives out there. There’s a lot of alternatives. So I encourage you to see where is there still dairy coming in.
and notice, do your own experiments, cut it out and notice what happens to your skin.
Kimberly Snyder (22:43.758)
Now, here’s another interesting research study I wanted to talk about from the National Library of Medicine in 2017. This found a connection between vitamin C and wrinkles. And this was studied in Korean women. And what it found was a higher intake of vitamin C led to a lower prevalence of wrinkles and specifically around the eyes, around the crow’s feet. So again,
Love that the science is really making a strong correlation between what we eat and how our skin looks. You want to have less wrinkles? Get that vitamin C in. Have your glowing green smoothie on a daily basis. Have these greens, these amazing greens are rich in vitamin C, as well as the fiber, as well as the lemon juice, as well as the high fiber fruit. It is all fantastic for your skin.
Too often, I think we rely on supplementation and we can pop a vitamin C pill, but there’s so many wonderful foods out there that contain it. And also concentrated formulas are wonderful. Powdered greens are wonderful. Amalaki, which I love, the sour fruit from Ayurvedic medicine known as the Fountain of Youth, super high in vitamin C.
So on a daily basis, this should be part of our regimen. Back to the colorful fruits and vegetables, back to the greens, salad, sprouts, micro greens. Vitamin C is also denatured in heat. So here’s where we wanna do the raw. This is why the Glow -in -Green Smoothie is really powerful.
is because it’s not heating up the greens, so you’re not denaturing the vitamin C, you’ll still be able to get its full effect into your system.
Kimberly Snyder (24:41.55)
Recently, we had a podcast here with Dr. Uma from Harvard, and she was making the connection between an anti -inflammatory diet and an anti -anxiety diet. And anti -inflammatory foods are also very important in your skin health and keeping your skin from aging. So some of these wonderful anti -inflammatory foods include, I mean, it just keeps going around in this circle as we talked about Dr. Uma, the wholeness, variety.
vegetables, fruits, legumes, seeds and nuts, inflammatory foods are those fried foods. They are potentially eating dairy and excessive meat products can create that inflammation in your system, especially depending on how they are cooked.
plant foods and a plant -based diet, a plant -forward diet, a lot of plants in your diet is going to be really wonderful for your skin. We are booking a podcast here. I’m looking over towards my bookshelf with Dr. Michael Greger, who is a incredible researcher. There are thousands and thousands of studies in this book, in this tome, and I’ve been reading certain chapters. He’s a chapter on skin, and he also talks about
positive effects of a plant -based diet on skin aging. And when we do that show, I’ll be, we’ll be sharing some specific research in that regard. But what I can leave you with here today is to know that as you get these cleansing, nourishing, vitality enhancing foods in your system, your skin will continue to look better and better no matter what the season. So check out the recipes that we have on mysaloon .com. Once again, we have so many wonderful, um,
recipes that make it really delicious and easy to incorporate these foods. I’m not a huge fan of fancy cooking. I like very simple techniques. I love stir fries. We make a lot of stews here. We make a lot of soup. I bake vegetables. So everything that we put out on the website is very easy. Now back to Erica’s specific question about winter. This dullness also can mean that we need to have, besides the healthy fats, we also need to hydrate more. We need to get some electrolytes in our system.
Kimberly Snyder (27:02.058)
Electrolytes are something that needs to be replaced, similarly to probiotics. I love the brand element. I have it every day myself. You may have heard me reading ads here. I consume it every day. Ads or not, I love it. I have it in my morning room temperature water. We want to make sure that we are also using Dourishing Skincare. If you haven’t tried our Saluna Vitamin C Serum, I think you’ll love it. It’s very brightening. I use it every day.
on my face, just as we want to ingest vitamin C, we also want a very potent form of vitamin C on our skin. And what we use in that serum is ASC2P, which is the same sort of stable vitamin C actually that’s in detoxi. Because whilst a lot of skincare brands tout vitamin C, just as cooking denatures vitamin C, it also becomes less potent the longer it sits in your jar or your bottle.
whereas ASE 2P, what we use in our serum, stays at its maximum potency. So it will continue to brighten your skin over time. I also want to say it’s very important to also incorporate, you can incorporate collagen building supplements, foods, herbs into your diet. This is also really great for rebuilding the skin. I love, you know, there’s silica out there, there’s bamboo.
There’s plant -based collagen supplements. Sun Warrior has some, Anima Mundi has some, just to call out a couple brands. I also think it’s very important to sleep well. It also, it always shows on our skin. Get into a healthy routine. We have plenty of other podcasts which we can link to in the show notes about an evening practice, managing your circadian rhythms.
March is sleep awareness month. I’ll be writing articles about sleep. So we’ll be sure to share them on social media at underscore Kimberly Snyder. I have some fresh ideas about elevating your sleep. So be sure to check them out as well as prior podcasts I’ve shot with Dr. Michael Bruce, a world famous sleep expert and others. Finally, I want to talk about our emotional wellbeing cornerstone, which is connected to our spiritual growth cornerstone, which is avoiding stress.
Kimberly Snyder (29:16.366)
I don’t want to just manage stress. We want to avoid it. How do we do that? We become more centered. We become less reactive. We come into our center, which is our gut and our heart. We breathe down into our gut. You can also breathe in and out of your heart. And I love to start the day with meditation because the more we do this, the more resilient and centered we are as we go into the day. We can also start the day with a simple mantra.
and a simple gratitude practice. I am peace. I am peace. No matter what happens today, I will remain peaceful. And a gratitude practice, feeling appreciation and expansion for what is. When we wake up to that every day, the little things don’t bother us as much. Temper tantrum, the unexpected detour on our way to work, the unexpected angry client email or whatever comes in.
We want to start centered. When we start centered, it’s less easy to get us off our center. When we start the day already scrolling on Instagram or TikTok or frazzled,
we’re more frazzled. Frazzled means more frazzled as we go into the day. So I encourage you to create a morning routine that is sacred to you and to carve out 10, 15 minutes for those practices. Meditation, intentions, prayer, mantra, gratitude. It will serve the rest of your day and ultimately it will make your skin look better because when we’re less frazzled and stressed, your skin, your hormones,
everything will have more rejuvenation and more energy. So it’s going to be so amazing for you to take all of this in, to take this holistic approach. I’m so excited for your beautiful glowing skin to continue to build day by day. And please check out our many offerings, check out the show notes. Remember digestion is a huge missing part of this, or a key.
Kimberly Snyder (31:23.822)
really to beautiful skin. I mentioned detoxing. You need to go to the bathroom often to have glowing skin. So please check out that supplement on our website, as well as our articles, guided meditations, the vitamin C serum I think you’ll love as well. And I’ll be back here Monday as always for our next show. Remember to keep the questions coming. I love to hear from you guys. You can ask me on our website. You can also ask me on social media at underscore Kimberly Snyder.
Sending you so much love as we go into this week, as we start to come into March. Please also sign up for our newsletter if you haven’t already. I have a lot of ideas I share in this March newsletter about the birthing that spring is and how we can bring these deepest dreams and desires out into reality because we are all powerful creators. So see you in a few days. Have a wonderful day, a wonderful weekend and sending you much love. Namaste.
