Everyone knows that if your skin doesn’t look healthy, you don’t look healthy. You can try to help your skin with expensive “treatments” from the cosmetic counter, and it may help your skin look better . . . at least for a while. But if your skin is suffering from nutritional deficiencies, there’s only one real solution: Eating the right foods and avoiding the wrong ones. In other words, using healing foods for your skin.

So here are five of the top healing foods for skin. They will help you solve a host of skin problems and get your skin looking its best.

1. Green Tea
Green tea is full of antioxidants, those wonderful little things that reduce inflammation and protect cell membranes. It can also help reduce sunburn damage and help lower your risk of skin cancer with its polyphenols, which fight cancer-causing free radicals and help revive dying skin cells.

2. Salmon

For truly healthy skin you need fatty acids, and salmon and other fatty fish — as well as foods like walnuts and flaxseed — are full of them. In healthy skin, the cell membranes need to be protected from harmful substances; essential fatty acids do that while allowing nutrients in and waste products out. They even help prevent skin damage by reducing the production of inflammatory agents.

To get smooth, supple skin you need to be sure to consume enough of the right fatty acids. The goal ratio is omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids should be 1:1. The American diet falls short of this with its almost 20:1 ratio, but you can help yourself by eating more salmon.

3. Blueberries
Blueberries are often cited as a “superfood” and there’s a reason. They are possibly the best source of antioxidants, and these work with the phytochemicals in blueberries to neutralize the free radicals that cause skin damage.

4. Carrots

Vitamin A is essential to maintaining the cells of healthy skin, and too little can lead to dry skin. Carrots are loaded with vitamin A as well as antioxidants.

5. Water
Healthy skin needs pure, clean water: It hydrates the cells and helps them eliminate toxins. You need to drink plenty of water every day, and, unfortunately, the water in caffeinated beverages and sweet drinks like cola, doesn’t count.

So now you know some of the best foods to eat to get healthy skin, but there are also some foods you should avoid. Sugar, white flour, and saturated fats. And really try to stay away from fried foods: They can actually cause skin conditions like acne by trapping oil and bacteria beneath the skin.

These guidelines are about as simple as it gets, but if you follow them, not only will you be healthier, but your skin will show it.

Image by Martin LaBar (going on hiatus) via Flickr