Does pumpkin vegetable or fruit? Well, just like tomato, pumpkin is actually fruit instead of vegetable but well known as vegetable because of how it is commonly served and cooked are more similar to the way people serve and cook the vegetables. There are a lot of types or varieties of pumpkin some of them are super tasty and sweet while others are a bit tasteless in flavor but with excellent texture to be made into cakes or foods.
What Is Pumpkin?
One thing to remember that pumpkin is not squash or gourd but those three come from the same family Cucurbitaceae which has more than 900 species including the common orange pumpkin, squash, bitter gourd, watermelon up to cucumber though technically pumpkin is closer botanically to gourd than squash. Scientifically the common pumpkin with deep yellow and orange color is well known as Cucurbita pepo and Cucurbita maxima. Asides from its excellent taste and texture, pumpkin is good for skin and hair because it contains a lot of nutrients that may be beneficial for the health of skin and hair.
Nutritional Values of Pumpkin
There must be some reasons why pumpkin is good for skin and hair. Those reasons could be seen through the nutritional values found in pumpkin such as the fiber content which is super high, vitamins such as vitamin A and vitamin C and then minerals such as iron, potassium and magnesium. Not only that, pumpkin is also excellent source of antioxidants and proteins which are essential for the health of skin and hair. The list of health benefits of pumpkin for skin and hair below will tell you more reasons why you should add pumpkin to your regular diet.
- Excellent Source of Vitamin C
When it comes to the vitamin C benefits the list could endless because vitamin C is one of the essential vitamin required for human’s metabolism. Moreover, vitamin C is also one of the potent antioxidants.
- Rich of Vitamin E
It is a common knowledge that all fruits and vegetables that are rich of vitamin E are excellent for skin and hair because vitamin E is type of antioxidant that could promote the regeneration of cells including skin cells and hair cells.
- Delays the Sign of Aging
As mentioned in the previous point, the vitamin C content in pumpkin could help delaying the sign of aging because it optimizes the cell regeneration, so there is no chance for cell degeneration to show its sign in the form of aging.
- Optimize the Collagen Production
The key to optimize collagen production is the enough amount of vitamin C. The function of collagen itself is very essential to skin elasticity and brightening the skin.
- Promotes Brighter Skin
As mentioned in the point number four the collagen produced through the amazing amount of vitamin C found in pumpkin is the reasons why your skin is getting brighter day by day.
- Say No to Wrinkles
Wrinkles are the sign of aging. However, pumpkin contains antioxidants, vitamin C and beta-carotene that could make sure no more premature aging in the form of wrinkles.
- Pumpkin Oil to Soften Lips
The health benefits of pumpkin seeds equal to the benefits of pumpkin itself. Pumpkin oil is made of the seeds of the pumpkin. This essential oil has been proven to have some potent medical properties and among them is to help softening the chapped lips.
- Prevents Acnes
Clogged pores are the main reason why acnes or pimples could occur due to excessive amount of oil in the face or the accumulation of dead skin cells. Pumpkin is excellent and natural solution to help controlling the oil production and removing the dead skin cells from the pores to prevent acnes. It is also excellent of how to prevent acnes and pimples naturally.
- Natural Moisturizer for Skin
Do you know that 95% of pumpkin is consisting of water? That is why pumpkin is a natural moisturize for skin especially those who are suffering from dry skin.
- Treatment for Oily Skin
One of the benefits of pumpkin is to remove oil due to its protein content that could help eliminating toxins. You could either eat it or use it externally to get rid of excessive oil from your skin.
- May Help Preventing Skin Cancer
One of the health benefits of beta-carotene is to prevent the development of cancerous cells. It could act as the antioxidant and has been proven scientifically.
- Eliminates Dark Spots
Dark spots could be really annoying because they could ruin your appearance. Dark spots occur when the dead skin cells were not completely removed from the skin surface. However, you could apply pumpkin pure as face mask to help eliminating the dark spots.
- Reduces Inflammation
Pumpkin is also excellent source of anti-inflammatory properties that may help in reducing the inflammation especially on the skin such as sun burnt or insect bites.
- Natural Face Mask
You could directly apply the pure of pumpkin to your face to be used as natural face mask. The vitamin C contents will help brightening the skin and eliminating the excessive oil that may cause clogged pores.
- Promotes Hair Growth
If you want to have healthy hair then you should grow it optimally. The minerals content such as zinc and potassium. The health benefits of potassium and zinc are excellent to promote the hair growth. You could get it by consuming the pumpkin or use it as externally as hair mask or hair conditioner.
- Solution to Dry Hair
Dry hair makes your hair looks frizzy and difficult to handle. What you need to deal with dry hair is only hair moisturizer and pumpkin is excellent and natural hair moisturizer you could apply to your hair.
- Prevents Premature Greying
Premature greying is the symptom of grey hair but occurs in young people. Though you could coloring your hair easily today but still it is not solving the problem. Consuming pumpkin could prevent premature greying because pumpkin is rich of minerals that are good for hair.
- Solution to Hair Loss
Thinning hair is not a symptom you should take for granted because it could lead to baldness if you don’t treat it rightly. Pumpkin is not only protecting your scalp but also providing nutrients to your hair so hair loss could be prevented.
- Natural Hair Conditioner
You could mix the pumpkin pure with coconut oil to have a natural hair conditioner you could apply to your hair in daily basis.
- Excellent Hair Mask
Not only as hair conditioner you could use the pumpkin pure as hair mask by mixing it with honey and some aromatic essential oils to be used as excellent hair mask.
- Pumpkin Oil as Hair Serum
Though there are a lot of hair serum products you could find easily but still the natural hair serum is the best way. You could apply the pumpkin oil as hair serum as well to promote the optimal health of your hair.
- Promotes Healthy Scalp
The problem with people is most of them are forgetting that scalp is also important to be taken care of. Healthy scalp means healthy hair.
From the list of health benefits of pumpkin for skin and hair as mentioned above, surely you don’t need to wait until Halloween to shop for some pumpkins because if you eat them or use them externally as face mask or hair conditioner in daily basis, there are a lot of health benefits you could get, not only for your skin or hair but also for your overall health.