Best Foods for Healthy Hair to Add to Your Diet

The foods people eat affect how their hair grows and it’s quality. Certain proteins, fats, vitamins, and minerals are especially important for strong, healthy hair. Read on to explore the best foods for healthy hair to add to your diet.

Best Foods for Healthy Hair

1. Fish

Fish like salmon, sardines, and mackerel are packed with healthy omega-3 fatty acids. Your body can’t make these healthy fats, so you have to get them from food or supplements. They help protect you from disease, but your body also needs them to grow hair and keep it shiny and full.

2. Eggs

For better hair growth and texture, you need to eat lots of protein. Hair is made up of keratin, which is a kind of protein. Eggs are one of the best sources of protein. The protein present in eggs is considered a high-quality protein and is excellent for hair growth and strength.

Plus, eggs contain biotin and B vitamins that play a major role in preventing hair loss problems and improving overall scalp health.

Try to eat one egg daily or every other day. You can eat scrambled eggs, fried eggs, or boiled eggs depending upon your preference.

3. Almonds

Nuts like almonds, pecans, cashews, and walnuts are good for your hair. But almonds are considered the best for preventing hair loss and promoting hair growth.

Almonds are loaded with zinc that plays a key role in maintaining healthy circulation in the scalp, which in turn provides shiny, healthier, well-moisturized hair.

Almonds also contain a high level of omega-3 fatty acids that add shine and volume to your hair. Being rich in vitamin E, almonds also help prevent split ends and promote the growth of healthy hair.

4. Greek yogurt

It’s packed with protein, the building block of your locks. Greek yogurt also has an ingredient that helps with blood flow to your scalp and hair growth. It’s called vitamin B5 (known as pantothenic acid) and may even help against hair thinning and loss. You may recognize pantothenic acid as an ingredient on your hair and skin care product labels.

5. Spinach

Spinach contains vitamin A that is needed for the production of sebum or oil on your scalp. An excess of sebum can cause an oily scalp, while the lack of sebum can cause a dry scalp. To keep the oil production in check, up to your spinach intake.

Spinach also contains other nutrients like vitamin E, C, biotin, and iron. Iron is an essential mineral that supplies oxygen to your hair follicles. According to some studies, iron deficiency is linked to baldness.

6. Sweet potato

Sweet potatoes are rich in vitamin A, which is essential for sebum production on the scalp. They also contain biotin, which lets the hair use protein for growth.

Biotin is also known to reverse the damage caused by heat styling methods like straightening, curling, and blow-drying. So, the next time your hair feels frizzy, grab a few sweet potatoes and munch on them.

7. Guava 

One of the best foods for healthy hair is guava. This tropical fruit brims with vitamin C. It protects your hair from breaking. One cup of guava has 377 milligrams of vitamin C. That’s more than four times the minimum daily recommended amount.

8. Broccoli

Broccoli is a rich source of vitamins A and C, which help produce sebum. Sebum is the oily substance secreted by hair follicles and works like a natural hair conditioner. Plus, broccoli is rich in iron, potassium, calcium, magnesium, and omega-3 fatty acids that are required for healthy hair growth.

To take full advantage of the nutrients present in broccoli, eat raw broccoli heads as a snack or in salad three or four times a week.

9. Quinoa

This type of whole grain is extremely good for your hair. Loaded with protein, quinoa aids in strengthening hair strands. In fact, the protein extracted from this grain is used in high-quality hair products.

Plus, the vitamin E present in quinoa balances the production of natural oil so the scalp and hair stay properly moisturized and free of dandruff. Quinoa also has biotin, niacin, and vitamins B6 and B12 that are all vital for hair growth.

10. Meat

Meat is a high source of protein and to reiterate, protein is all you need to feed your hair strands well. Avoiding protein in the name of crash diets can have a detrimental effect on your hair and make your hair strands enter the shedding phase prematurely.

Red meat is a great source of iron. It has ferritin, which stores iron and helps in making hair cell proteins.