The best food to eat for healthy hair, according to dietitians

Nutrition

By Nadine DeNinno

Your best hair day is just a mouthful away.

Dieticians have revealed exactly how to eat your way to healthier hair, since a proper diet can improve issues from shedding to dry strands.

But along with eating the right foods, nourishing your body overall is just as important, registered dietician Amanda Sauceda told Shape.

“It’s important to ensure your body is getting enough calories,” she said, pointing to the suggested 2,000-calorie-a-day dietary guidelines. “Your body requires energy for hair growth and for the production of hormones required for healthy hair, so make sure basic calorie needs are met.”

As for what exact foods can lead to healthy tresses, Sauceda and other experts said wild salmon was the best choice due to its high-quality protein content.

Registered dietician Frances Largeman-Roth told the magazine that salmon also has other nutrients like marine collagen, omega-3s and zinc along with protein to add to hair health.

“Hair is made from protein, specifically keratin, so it makes sense that we need to eat an adequate amount of protein in our diet to support healthy hair growth,” she explained.

Largeman-Roth also called out wild sockeye salmon — which is sustainably caught, typically in Alaska — as the option with the highest vitamin D content, suggesting eating it twice a week.

Of course, salmon has been named as a superfood for more than just healthy locks. As a staple in the Mediterranean diet, which was recently named the overall best diet in the world, salmon has a wide range of benefits beyond hair, including staving off cancer, dementia and heart disease.

Another study found that eating just two portions of fish, like salmon, could also reverse damage to the body caused by junk food.

Salmon wasn’t the only superfood on their list, though. Almonds, walnuts, eggs, citrus fruits, skin-on chicken and legumes also made the cut for hair health, too.