Speaking of food, summer has its great pleasures: epic grills, ice cream as much as you can, succulent fruit that overflows with sunshine, like healthy & delicious peaches, apricots – which are the orange of summer – and the watermelon to bite. Summer also has its rules: there are the right foods to cool off, and the right ones to get a tan.

Sunbathing doesn't just mean becoming chocolate-colored, but also have a healthy, smooth and hydrated skin. That is to put together the aesthetic and the healthy side. Which, in cascade, provides a third non-negligible result: if the skin is in shape, the tan will last longer.

In general, friends of the skin are the vitamins, i mineral salts and thewater. A trio of health that focuses on fruit and in the vegetable. In particular, vitamins TO, C and IS they are natural antioxidants that counteract the production of free radicals (molecules harmful to the body, whose production increases with exposure to the sun) and favor the "youth" of the epidermis.

The A, then, is by far the most powerful in stimulating the melanin, the pigment responsible for darkening the skin and protecting it from excessive exposure to solar radiation. Beta-carotene it is a provitamin A – which means that it then turns into vitamin A if necessary, is a powerful antioxidant and is present only in the plant kingdom, in particular in everything that presents itself of orange color and surroundings. The vegetable that contains the greatest percentage is unquestionably the carrot, with as much as 1200 micrograms every 100 grams of pulp. Next, the radicchio, apricots, chicory … Here is the top ten compiled by Coldiretti:

Instructions for Use

To get a good result on the beach it is good to start the "diet" of the tan around one month before, so that the body receives the high vitamin regime.

Avoid stuffing yourself with carrots only, but eat so balanced also the other vegetables and fruits. Also in this case the excesses are harmful and cause imbalance.

Start at morning with a nice smoothie and carry on during the day with a few snacks spezzafame based on fruit or vegetables. Do not exceed with centrifuged, which are completely fiber-free and could slow intestinal function.

The ideal consumption is a raw, to avoid dispersing valuable nutrients in the cooking water or due to heat. But it is not always true. The tomato raw it supplies vitamin C and once cooked it becomes the major natural dispenser of lycopene (a powerful antioxidant). Too bad that cooking destroys vitamin C. Mostly Solution? Eat it both as a side dish and in the form of a sauce. For the carrot the same applies: if raw is a good source of vitamin C, cooked makes it more available betacarotene of which it is rich; so in turn it should be consumed in both ways. It is also essential to add a drizzle of oil, because both lycopene and beta-carotene are fat-soluble and it is therefore easier to assimilate them associated with fat.

Once on the beach

Exposure to the sun, especially if it occurs once a year, subject the skin to sudden stress and abnormal sweating. The precious juices contained in the vegetables are not enough to hydrate it. Drink a lot water and juices, eat watermelon and melon.

Instead they are under the sun to avoid carbonated beverages and alcoholic beverages, as well as heavy foods (fried foods for example). Drinks and foods that strain the liver and the body generate a chain reaction: the body produces toxins, excretes them through the skin, the latter gets irritated and the sun gives it the final blow.

And when you go home …

After the holidays, to prolong the duration of the suntan, but also to make you a gift in general, do not abandon the habit of consuming fruit and vegetables in abundance. Do not sadly resign yourself to the end of everything. Summer can become the starting point for undertaking a new diet. In autumn and winter, among apples, pears, oranges, pumpkins, spinach, broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower, there is everything you need to keep yourself beautiful and healthy. And you can see the difference, even without a tan.

Cristiana Cassé
10 June 2016
updated by Carola Traverso Saibante
June 2019