Skin Healing Carrot Salad

If someone joked and gave me "5 carrots" instead of a 5 carat ring I wouldn't even be mad.

"I'd dump him of course,  after I take the carrots, but that's besides the point. I'd eat 5 carrots every day if I could because they're just such a powerhouse of a veggie.

Don't feel like reading a whole ass essay on why this salad is amazing? Skip ALL the way down to the bottom. You'd be doing a disservice to yourself but I ain't judging ;)

Personally, I think carrots are truly a superfood for hair and skin. Here's why. They are natural DHT blockers, and if you didn't know this, DHT is a hormone present in people assigned male at birth, aka MEN. This hormone is essential for men during their growth phase, however it affects women differently. Testosterone in the female body gets converted to DHT (roughly 10% gets converted) and when you have hormone imbalances or PCOS, it leads to excess androgens. Androgen is the male sex hormone so in the simplest of terms, what happens to men later in life happens to women who have more of DHT. So this hormone imbalance causes irregular periods, hair fall (male pattern baldness for dudes, overall hairfall for us), acne etc. 

Carrots, pumpkin seeds, green tea, spinach, mango, tomatoes and so many more foods are natrual DHT blockers which is why I incorporate these into my meals as often as I can. 

Carrots also contain beta carotene which your body converts into vitamin A, and if you've ever dealt with terrible cystic acne, you may have been prescribed Accutane, which is a derivative of vitamin A. So why not get it naturally instead? Beta carotene is also excellent for the skin as it is a powerful anti-oxidant, and great for the eyes. There is literally no negative to eating carrots! I ain't a doctor but no doctor actually took the time to explain to me what exactly a lifestyle change to beat PCOS even means, so I did my own research and created recipes that work for me, based on scientific data available online. I hihgly recommend you read up more on everything I've mentioned here. 

Carrots with vinegar are perfect to get in those vitamins and vinegar before each meal helps reduce the glucose spike. Why do we want to reduce a glucose spike? So we don't get hungry and hungrier after each meal. That 4pm crash where you just crave some cookies and chai and chips? That your glucose crashing because it spiked. When we have some vinegar before a meal and line our stomach with fibre first before eating any carbs or protein, we are significantly reducing that spike, thus, the desire to binge also reduces. And when you binge or eat some crap at 4pm, its usually sugary which messes with your hormones again and the cycle continues AND you are always bloated! See how its all connected?

Thats why this salad is perfect, it keeps you full longer, its great for your hair and skin, it prevents post meal bloating and it helps stabilise your glucose. 

Here's the recipe

1 large, raw carrot, shredded, 1 tsp flax seeds, 2 tsp pumpkin seeds, 2 tsp sesame seeds, 1/2 tablespoon apple cider vinegar, 1 tsp honey or maple syrup (for taste, you may avoid), 1/2 tsp olive or sesame oil (optional) and 1 tsp dijon mustard and 1 tsp balsamic vinegar. 

Mix all of this together and eat at room temp or chilled. You can add other ingredients to the salad like mung beans, chickpeas, lettuce etc but honestly who the hell has time.  I like to keep it simple and eat other forms of protein like tofu to keep the carbs low. BUT, if you love bhel, you can make this recipe and add potato, mung beans, tomatoes and some tamarind paste to give it that bhel like flavour. 

Eat this salad before each meal, I like to eat a small bowl for breakfast, and a large bowl for lunch and dinner followed by my main meals. Also, 1-2 carrots a day is more than enough, you don't have to eat loads of this!

Over for healthy hair and skin and its not about that one medicine or hair oil that you use but a holistic lifestyle change in small ways. For me, working on my diet and how I eat made a huge difference. More on that later, enjoy this recipe <3