A few months ago, I went in for my yearly skin check at my dermatologist. I was seeing a new doctor. He came into the exam room, introduced himself and shook my hand.

He held on to my outstretched hand for a closer look.

"You certainly do like to eat healthy, don't you?" he said.

"Yes, I do," I said, sounding surprised. "How can you tell?" I had had a quick conversation about my work with his nurse and assumed she had mentioned SparkPeople.com to him.

"Your hands, they're rather orange," he said. "Do you eat lots of carrots?"
I shook my head in affirmation.

"I love vegetables--I'm a cookbook writer and food editor…" I trailed off as he continued his exam and looked at the soles of my feet.

He said that he can tell when people eat a healthy diet with plenty of orange vegetables because the soles of their hands and feet turn slightly orange. I eat a rainbow of vegetables daily, not just orange ones, so it seemed odd to me that my feet and hands would be so yellow!

Disclaimer: I am gullible. If I try to fib I turn bright red and stammer, and I am terrible at making up stories for the purpose of fooling people. This was both a strength and a weakness in my old life as a newspaper reporter.

"Really?" I said incredulously. "Are you serious?"

The doc said he was, but he seemed so jovial that I doubted him.

We continued talking, he finished my exam and, after scolding me for going without sunscreen a couple of times in the Equatorial sun last year in Honduras, told me that I'm all clear for two years. I had a pair of iffy moles removed in the past and a scare from another dermatologist, so I get a bit nervous when I go in to get checked. A healthy diet, plenty of water and exercise, he said, is evident in the skin. Mine is healthy, despite its alabaster hue and propensity to burning.

I forgot all about that avuncular physician's mention of my orange skin, until I read a recent blog post on NPR's The Salt: The Secret To Glowing (Yellow) Skin? Eat Your Fruits And Veggies


Feet are so yellow that my hands look red in this photo! In real life, they look almost as yellow as my feet. And by the way, it's difficult to photograph both the palms and soles at the same time!

Go to that blog to read the details of the study, which is admittedly small and limited to Caucasians in Scotland. Two interesting take-aways: Subjects who ate more veggies (especially orange ones) had a slightly more yellowish hue to their skin than those who subsisted on pizza and fries. When people were shown photos that had been subtly altered to make the models appear a bit more yellow, they were rated as healthier and more attractive than those in the photos that were not altered.
Interesting, right? 

The study participants weren't eating pounds and pounds of veggies each day. Those who noticed the most significang difference ate an additional one to three servings of vegetables daily. (That's 1/2 cup cooked or raw veggies or 1 cup leafy greens.)

I've had yoga students (a teenage boy) comment on how yellow my feet are, but I can tell you no one was interpreting that yellow hue as being more attractive! Ah, the weirdness of the human body.

Let this study be yet another reason to get more fruit and veggies into your daily meals--half your plate at every meal, according to MyPlate.gov. I aim for 8-10 servings a day, but I often eat more than that.

Have you noticed that your skin glows or looks healthier when you eat more veggies? Does your skin have a yellowish undertone to it?