Believe it or not, the quality of your hair – not just how it looks, but also how it feels and how it smells – is going to be impacted dramatically by the kind of food you eat on a regular basis.

If you feel like your hair is dry and filled with dandruff or oily and not exactly the most pleasant smelling stuff on the planet, the odds are pretty good that your diet is to blame for your less than luxurious locks of hair.

Thankfully though, only a couple of quick changes to your diet can result in significantly improve hair quality. In fact, it’s likely that these few improvements will not only dramatically boost the quality of your hair – the bounce, the shine, the volume, and the smell – but they will also improve your health in a number of other ways as well.

Let’s dive into a couple of different things you can do to improve your diet for healthy hair!

It all starts by getting more fatty acids into your body

The overwhelming majority of people out there simply do not get enough healthy fatty acids in their daily diet for a variety of different reasons.

For starters, the foods that are rich in fatty acids (fish, flaxseed oil, and some nuts) aren’t exactly the least expensive option at the grocery store – and many of them aren’t staples of the Standard American Diet to begin with.

Thankfully though, adding these foods to your diet (or even reaching for a vitamin that is rich in fatty acids like an omega three or omega six supplement) isn’t all that difficult. Your favorite fatty fishes (including salmon, tuna, and macro) are absolutely swimming in this essential as it, and a couple of extra walnuts or almonds thrown on your salad will boost your hair health as well.

B Vitamins are a big piece of the puzzle

You are also going to want to make sure that you boost the amount of B vitamins that you get on a regular basis as well.

Vitamin B6 and vitamin B12 are the most important to add to your daily diet, and you’ll be to pick both of those by eating more bananas and spinach as well as delicious lean meat, poultry, and dairy options.

These vitamins are also going to go a long way towards improving your overall health and wellness. You’ll be able to enjoy a smoother complexion, less blemishes, increased feelings of energy, a smoother digestive system, and a whole host of other almost invisible but incredibly important benefits that you would have gone without previously.

If you are struggling from hair loss learn more about hair loss vitamins and foods for hair growth and thickness.

Folic acid is key to improving the health of your hair

Folic acid (produced by citrus fruits and tomatoes) is going to supply the roots of your hair with absolutely everything it needs to grow as long as humanly possible, and as healthy as humanly possible, and as shiny and thick as humanly possible.

Seriously – if there’s a single supplement on the planet that you want to reach for when it comes time to boosting the overall appearance of your hair, it’s this one. Folic acid is a game changer, and that’s why you were going to want to eat more citrus fruits, more tomatoes, and even some fortified green products or lentils.

You do need to be careful that you don’t overdo it with this particular acid. Too much can be a bad thing, and it may start to cause a negative reaction on your skin while still supporting happy and healthy hair growth.

That’s probably not a trade-off that you are willing to make.

Increase your protein intake

At the end of the day, you were hair is simply a protein – and that’s why you’re going to want to “feed it” with as many sources of quality protein as you can.

The ideal diet for healthy hair (as well as optimized health) is rich in lean proteins from sources like fish and chicken, lean cuts of beef and pork, and eggs (especially eggs, the world’s legitimate superfood). Anything you’re able to do to increase the amount of protein that you get into your body is always going to be beneficial.

You want to shoot for about .5 g of protein for every pound of body weight as a general rule of thumb, which may or may not require you getting your hands on a top quality protein supplement to get you to your final figure. Both sources of protein will always be of a higher quality than protein supplements, but in a pinch nothing beats a protein shake!

Iron, magnesium, zinc, and biotin will boost your hair quality through the roof

Each of these minerals is going to contribute significantly to the overall quality of your hair and so much more.

By adding these minerals to your daily diet for healthy hair you’re also going to improve your skin condition and complexion, your liver function, your respiratory system, and your circulatory system.

This means you’re going to have better looking hair, that your body will be able to flush toxins more effectively, that you’ll be able to breathe easier, and that your heart will keep on beating just as regular as it should be – all from adding a little bit more of these minerals to your daily intake.

Biotin is especially important for hair and skin health. Your circulatory system will make sure that this critical element is brought right to the roots of your hair (and your fingernails), and will speed up the growing process quite a bit. You may have to clip your nails a little more frequently than you did in the past, but it also means your hair is going to grow a lot faster (and healthier!) than it did before.

Final thoughts

At the end of the day, there are a number of things you can do to boost the health of your hair – but the most effective solutions are going to be the changes you make to your daily diet.

Come up with a diet for healthy hair that also supports a healthy lifestyle (more green food, less processed junk) and you’ll really be on to something special!