What Are Your Favorite Foods for Glowing Skin and Reducing Acne?
15 Dec 2025 · 6 min
This is a podcast episode of Ask the Health Expert (host JJ Virgin) featuring guest Serena Poon, a chef and certified nutritionist, answering a listener question about foods that promote glowing skin and reduce acne. The episode interleaves multiple sponsor ad reads but the substantive interview lists and explains skin-beneficial foods and nutrients — notably avocado, blueberries, kale, sweet potato, lemon, pumpkin, and cranberries — with reasons (antioxidants, vitamins A/C/E, healthy fats, niacinamide, beta‑carotene) for how they support collagen, hydration, oil balance, and protection from oxidative/sun damage.
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What are your favorite foods for glowing skin and reducing acne? This is JJ Virgin, four time New York Times bestselling author, celebrity nutrition expert, expert and Fitness hall of Famer. I've been on a lifelong quest for answers to the toughest health questions, and now I'm sharing what I found with you. Welcome to Ask the Health Expert. Cynthia from Facebook asks, what are your favorite foods for glowing skin and reducing Acne? Hey, it's J.J. and I've got Serena Phoon here today to answer this question. She's a Le Cordon Bleu trained chef, certified nutritionist, and Reiki master to the Hollywood elite. She started by creating contemporary meals, nutrition plans and menus for the likes of everyone from Jerry Bruckheimer to Kerry Washington to Sean P. Diddy Combs. Her passion for integrative health and holistic nutrition led her to create Culinary Alchemy, a method of functional and spiritual nutrition that integrates health food, affects our bodies on a physiological and energetic level. She's also a crazy good gift giver. I've gotten some of my favorite crystals from her. We'll be right back to answer this question, so stay with me.
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As much as food is medicine for the body and soul, it is also the foundation for healthy, beautiful skin. And over the years, the beauty industry has really begun to recognize this and kind of capitalize on the incredible benefits that we can get from whole plant based foods for our skin. So with nearly every fruit plant, every fruit, vegetable and plant extract that's available, we find an abundance of vitamins and minerals that are essentially the building blocks for skin, such as building collagen and elasticity and protection from pigmentation from the sun and also getting that really beautiful glow. So some of the foods that I love that give our body those nutritional benefits and beauty benefits are avocado, blueberries, kale, sweet potato, lemon and pumpkin. So I can dive into each one of them a little bit if I have, if I have the time here. So avocado, which is literally one of my favorite foods I have, I have at least half to a whole avocado every single day, about a medium avocado. They're in my kitchen all the time when I travel. It's one of the first things that I make sure I order along with good quality water and healthy snacks if I'm traveling somewhere for business. And so it's just absolutely a favorite of mine because it's bursting with nutrients and I just love it. And I'm plant based, so it's a really good source of healthy fat for me. But it's great for the skin as a food if we ingest it. But it's also great as a topical application. You can use it in a face mask, you can use it as a hair mask. But those healthy fats provide deep moisture for the skin cells and they keep our sebum from breaking out. So they keep our glands just beneath the skin balanced to prevent acne breakouts. So healthy skin, essential vitamins and antioxidants like vitamin A, B, C and E, they're all key nutrients in avocados and they help protect the skin from oxidative damage caused by the sun and the environment. So avocados are one of my absolute faves. Blueberries, another favorite. I'd say that blueberries are just one of the fruits the plants plant food out there that's one of the highest in powerful antioxidants. Anthocyanins, polyphenols, phytonutrients, these are all things that help fight inflammation, they help improve cognitive function and they really neutralize the free radicals that help improve our skin. They help improve the signs of aging and that protection against free radicals can help with dry skin, age spots, even varicose veins. So blueberries are just, it is a definite go to as one of my favorite foods for glowing skin. They have super high concentrations of vitamin A which can help balance the oil levels also in the skin. And it's again very effective for acne prone skin. Another one of my favorite foods is kale. So I would say that all dark green vegetables are powerhouse superfoods. And that's why I make sure that I have a green juice pretty much every single day that doesn't have sugar in it. It's just, it's a combination of kale, cucumber, celery, parsley, cilantro and some spinach. And so kale being one of the main ingredients of a juice like that, is just one of the most nutrient dense sources of antioxidants and minerals as well as again super high levels of vitamin A, B, C and E. So again with all of these great antioxidants fighting off free radicals and that vitamin C boosting collagen synthesis, Kale is just a key ingredient, a key food for improving our skin's elasticity, increasing skin, skin cell turnover. It's also just a great source of niacinamide which is really great for clear blemish free skin. And niacinamide is also great for protecting our skin against sun damage. So it's great for just even tone, evening out the skin tone. So that's kale sweet potato, another one of my very favorite foods. It's just another skin glow superfood because they have such a high abundance of beta carotene, vitamin D, anthocyanins. These all act like natural sunblock from the inside really. And it protects our skin cells from sun exposure. It also helps neutralize oxidative stress age related damage to our cells and they're just great for keeping the skin really hydrated because it's so rich in potassium and pantothenic acid. So you know, so many benefits to sweet potatoes that I feel like often get overlooked. What else? I love lemons. So I probably talk about having a big warm glass of lemon water pretty much in every single podcast. And anytime you talk to me about water hydration or even if you don't, I'll put it in there because it's one of the most important things things in a lifestyle. And so I'm a big believer that you start off your day with a warm lemon water for a lot of reasons. So lemon is excellent for our skin because it's loaded with vitamin C, which we've already said is crucial for pre collagen and elastin production. It's also a super powerful antioxidant and it prevents free radical damage. And lemons are also incredibly alkalizing once it's been metabolize in the body. And the minerals in lemons help to balance the PH levels in the body by alkalizing the blood. So balanced PH levels help to keep our skin hydrated, even tone fresh, youthful looking, glowy, all the things you want for glowing skin and to have to have less acne or to just prevent acne at all. So those are the things. And I had already talked about pumpkin which again is so super rich in beta carotene. All the same benefits. And another great one are cranberries. You know fresh cranberries are a great go to. They're high water content. Anything that has a high water content is also as long as it's not high in sugar is also a great skin glow food.
This is JJ with Ask the Health Expert. I do this five times a week so make sure you never miss a show by going to subscribetojay.com.
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