Beautiful, bright yellow and incredibly tart, lemons are not known as something that you eat all by itself. However, this small fruit is packed with nutrients that can boost your health in multiple ways. The lemon is the smallest in the group of fruits in the citrus family, but don’t let its size fool you – this tangy, tart fruit is known as a power player in the world of healthy foods. (1)
Read on to find out five ways that lemons can help you increase your health and vitality.
1) Lemons are packed with vitamin C
Did you know that just one small lemon has more than 100 percent of your daily recommended amount of vitamin C? (2)
Vitamin C is critical to your body’s health. Some of the ways vitamin C helps you include: (3)
- Assists in wound healing
- Protects you from the effects of stress
- Lowers cholesterol
- Lowers risk of heart disease
- Lowers risk of stroke
- Helps treat the common cold
2) Lemons can help you get a fresh, brighter complexion
Whether eaten on its own, or applied to your skin, lemons ease damage caused by elements such as too much sun exposure and pollution. They help your skin because the vitamin C it contains helps in the making of collagen, which is the substance that gives your skin its elasticity and firmness (and its youthful radiance). (4)
Here are some ideas for how to use lemon for your skin: (5)
- Rub it onto your face (careful around the eyes!), elbows and knees for the brightening effects
- Combine it (half and half) with witch hazel and use it as a toner for your face before you go to bed
- Cut a lemon in half and dip the pulp side in some sugar – use this to softly and gently exfoliate your face, then rinse off with cool water.
- Drink a glass of lemon water daily for the healing and skin-loving effects
3) Use lemons in your plan to boost your immune system (6)
Foods high in vitamin C like lemon are chock-full of antioxidants that are your immune system’s best buddy. The citrus flavonoids in lemons are a natural anti-inflammatory substance.
Squeeze some lemon juice on your foods, herbal tea or into a glass of water to get the benefits of the inflammation fighting antioxidants they contain.
4) Lemons help balance your body’s pH by boosting its alkalinity (7)
Squeeze some lemon juice into your water every day to alkalize your body, which is critical to maintaining its pH balance. Having a good pH balance is good for you because it helps with your state of energy, your skin’s health, and your digestion. These benefits come with having an alkaline state.
What does that mean exactly? Well, if your body is in an acid state, it can lead to a poor state of health. This can be remedied by applying the opposite – that is, raising your body’s alkaline state. (8)
Lemons seem acidic, and yet, lemon water has an alkalizing effect to the body, and with its super-low sugar content, paired with its high alkaline mineral content, it counteracts the effects the acid content.
5) Lemons can help keep your digestive system running smoothly
Surely you have heard many people praising the benefits of drinking lemon water daily. They are onto something, because lemon water flushes out toxins, assists your digestive system and helps in the process of eliminating the waste products from the body much easier. It can also help ease problems with constipation and diarrhea with its ability to make your digestive process, include elimination, go more smoothly. (9)
Now that you know just a few of the multiple benefits of using lemons daily to boost your health, be sure to stock up on them on your next trip to the produce section!
Antonia is a science enthusiast with a keen interest in health nutrition. She has been intensely researching various dieting routines for several years now, weighing their highs and their lows, to bring readers the most interesting info and news in the field. While she is very excited about a high raw diet, she likes to keep a fair and balanced approach towards non-raw methods of food preparation as well. Read more by Antonia here, and SUBSCRIBE!
Sources for this article include:
(1) www.nutrition-and-you.com
(2) www.medicalnewstoday.com
(3) www.thehealthsite.com
(4) perfectskincareforyou.com
(5) www.mythirtyspot.com
(6) www.everydayhealth.com
(7) www.care2.com
(8) www.naturalnews.com
(9) foodmatters.tv
