Can Foods Really Help You See in The Dark?

You’ve all heard the old wives’ tale that carrots will help you see in the dark, but are there actually certain foods that can look after your eyes?

A lot of food offers a range of benefits and we’re often being told we should eat this new superfood or that cure-all ingredient, without really knowing if it’s going to do what it says on the pack.

So what should you be eating to help improve your eyesight – or at least stop it from getting worse?

A new study published in the Journal Ophthalmology found that oranges could help to stave off cataracts in older people, meaning that an orange a day could keep the ophthalmologist at bay.

Researchers looked at 324 pairs of female twins – most of whom were in their 60s – over the course of a decade, discovering that those who ate more vitamin C were around a third (33 per cent) less likely to suffer from worsening cataracts.

Cataracts are a common eye problem – around 300,000 procedures to correct them are performed every year in the UK alone – and is when the lens of the eye starts to become cloudy, affecting your vision.

By eating more oranges, people increase their vitamin C intake, which means more of the vitamin is present in the eye fluid. It’s this that helps stop the lens from clouding.

While oranges may not let you see in the dark, they could keep you seeing better for a number of years.

Another type of food that could have you seeing a little clearer is leafy greens. Yes that’s right, the celebrity love of kale could actually be more than just a fad!

Foods like spinach and green kale contain some key compounds, two of which are only produced by plants, helping your eyesight as well as your waistline.

Lutein and zeaxanthin are both called ‘yellow compounds’ and can only be produced by plants, while meso-zeaxanthin is often found in plants but we actually produce it in our bodies from the lutein we eat.

These compounds, which are known as carotenoids – perhaps the reason carrots have long been said to be good for your eyes – help to improve your eyesight in a number of ways, including night vision and slowing age-related macular degeneration (the biggest cause of vision loss in the UK).

Changing what you eat to include more of these ingredients, or taking supplements, could help to keep your vision clear and your eyes healthy, as well as the rest of your body.