Foods That Fight Sun Damage

We all know that wearing sunscreen is the best way to protect our skin from the sun's harmful rays.  You will find some of my favorites here.   But there are foods that we can eat more of to protect our skin from the inside out.  Many of these are so easy to incorporate into our diets every day.  Super healthy AND helpful.  Love it!

Green Tea:

I have always loved Green Tea. Besides its abilities to boost your immune system and speed up your metabolism, it also helps to soothe sunburns. Drinking one to two cups of this antioxidant-rich tea a day helps to reduce the redness of sunburn. 

Sweet Potatoes:

Sweet potatoes are packed to the brim with beta-carotene, so chow down this summer! Cancer-causing compounds called free radicals are the enemy when it comes to sun damage. They not only cause damage to skin cells, but also cells inside the body. One of the best ways to help your body fight off free radicals is through consuming a variety of antioxidant-rich foods. One of the major antioxidants is beta-carotene.

Grapefruit:
One of my favorite morning fruits.  Grapefruits are rich in lycopene and are a great way to minimize sun exposure.  Pink grapefruit and juice contains high levels of lycopene. There is almost a shield like role lycopene plays in protecting the skin from severe burn.   Can't beat that!

Garlic:

Garlic contains a natural compound called allicin, which has strong antioxidant and healing properties. Antioxidants fight off free radicals that enter your body from sun exposure, so eat your garlic.

Olive Oil:

Olive oil is not only great to use for cooking, it’s also an antioxidant-rich food that fights sun damage. One study actually proved that incorporating olive oil regularly into your diet can help to reduce reddening from sun exposure by 35%, according to an article from World’s Healthiest Foods.

Tomatoes:

Tomatoes are so abundant, taste so fresh in the summertime and a study, performed in 2001, looked at volunteers who ate 40 grams of tomato paste over a ten-week period. The group was forty percent less likely to experience sunburn when exposed to harmful UV rays.  Again, lycopene in the tomatoes is the shield.  But don’t forget to add a little olive oil to insure absorption of the special skin-protecting photochemical. 

So make sure you always have plenty of sunscreen on hand when going outside and include these skin healthy foods in your diet for an added boost.

Summer Casual

Summer makes me happy!  I love everything about it.  The longer days and lazy mornings, pool time and picnics in the park.  I love an excuse to get together with friends on a warm evening.  This is what I love and this is what I wear-summer casual at its best.  Lose/light tunic and a pair of cropped jeans.  I am busy this week getting ready for our upcoming weekend BBQ.  It's a big job-150 peeps!  But so fun!  Hope you are enjoying your week so far.

Click below for outfit details.

4th of July Sales

I love a great sale and the 4th of July kicks off a weekend of some amazing ones that you have to check out.   

Nordstrom tons of new summer markdowns

Gap 60% off Summer Styles including all baby and kids too

J Crew extra 40% final sale items

Tory Burch 30% off Summer Event using code SUMMER14

Anthropologie 20% off summer tag sale 

So if your anything like me and love to stock up on some great finds from a great sale then click, click, click.

Happy Shopping and Happy 4th!!

Red, White and Blue

Looking for a super easy totally yummy 4th of July dessert?  These festive, ice cream coconut snowballs are always a hit.    If your looking for other easy to pull together 4th of July ideas click here and here.

The great thing about this no-brainer dessert is that you can make them ahead of time and whip them out when the peeps are ready for some sweets.  

Frozen Coconut Snowballs

1 pint of your favorite vanilla ice cream

1 bag of shredded sweetened coconut

strawberries and blueberries for garnish

I use a classic vanilla bean ice cream but you can use a low calorie frozen yogurt as well if you want to shave some calories.  I line my baking sheets with wax paper.  Using an ice cream scooper make scoops of vanilla ice cream and roll them in the shredded coconut.  Place them in rows on the baking sheets and place in freezer until needed.  Pull them out plate and garnish with fresh blueberries and strawberries.  

Hope this easy recipe makes your 4th super sweet!

Sweet Strawberries

We have made it an annual summer tradition to go strawberry picking.  We have found the perfect patch about an hour north of us.  It makes for an easy trip and we get some fantastic pickings-perfect for making freezer jam.  The kids love peanut butter and jelly so I try to make a year supply.  We just finished our last jar from a year ago so I knew it was time to get picking. The older kids were busy in camps so I took the little boys to help me.  It was the perfect day-sun was shinning but it wasn't too hot.  We packed our rain boots because the fields have been muddy with all the rain that we've been having.  We picked for an hour and got 3 big boxes packed to the brim.

The Best & Super Easy Freezer Jam

Here is what you’ll need: 

2 pints of strawberries

4  cups sugar

1 box Sure Jell fruit pectin

3/4 cup water

half pint sized mason jars

*I do boil my jars and lids to make sure they are sterile before using them.  

I rinse the berries well and cut off the tops and place them in a large bowl.

Next I mash using a potato masher until completely mashed and the consistency is thick and a bit chunky.

Add 4 cups of sugar to the crushed strawberries and stir until completely mixed.

Place Sure-Jell into a saucepan with 3/4 cups of water and bring to a boil on high heat until the jell is dissolved in the water.  Add the mixture to the berries and stir until sugar is completely dissolved. Use a funnel to pour jam into the jars.  If you don't have a kitchen funnel then carefully spoon the jam into the jars.  Leave about a 1/2 of an inch at the top of each jar.  Screw the lids on tight and let stand on the counter at room temperature for 24 hours.  Place in freezer for up to a year .  I usually have one jar in the fridge for about 3-4 weeks at a time.  I also double or triple this recipe depending how many strawberries we pick.

This recipe makes the best jam for peanut butter and jellies.  It's also so yummy on top of a bowl of vanilla ice cream.  Perfect for strawberry sundaes.

Favorite Summer Look

I have this outfit from J. Crew for summer and I love it.  It's been my fave for the backyard BBQ.  I have my white jeans on repeat this summer because I feel that you can never go wrong with a great white denim on a casual summer night.  I just make sure that I wait until the very last moment before heading out the door to put them on.  Lots of dirty little hands around here so it's pajama pants for me until I'm walking out the door. 

My outfit details are below:

Party Time

As promised some pictures from our little one's 3rd birthday party.  It was just several of his little friends from the neighborhood for lunch and an outside jumpy.  It was a beautiful day and the kids spent most of the time outside.  

Can't believe three years have gone by since we brought this little guy into our family.  We are truly blessed!