Foods with biotin for hair: boost your hair health

Biotin is a B vitamin, specifically vitamin B7, although it is also known as vitamin B8 or vitamin H.

Deficiency can lead to thinning hair, weak nails that become brittle or skin problems.

Conversely, an adequate supply of biotin through diet and supplementation contributes to the maintenance of healthy skin, nails and hair.

This vitamin must be obtained from exogenous sources, so to cover the necessary quantities, a sufficient proportion of foods such as salmon, avocado or beef liver must be ingested, among other foods that we will see in depth in the following section.

It should also be borne in mind that biotin is a soluble vitamin and is therefore not stored by the body.

This means that in order to enjoy all its benefits and avoid possible deficiencies, it must be taken regularly.

Foods with biotin for hair

To get the full benefits of biotin, we must ensure that our diet includes the following foods:

Eggs

Eggs are an excellent source of biotin, especially the yolk, where most of this vitamin is concentrated.

To maximise absorption, eggs should be consumed fully cooked. This is because, in the raw state, the avidin protein present in egg whites can impair biotin absorption.

As for the specific amounts of vitamin B7 provided by this food, we can get an idea by considering that a whole boiled egg can provide us with around 10 micrograms of biotin.

Legumes

In general, pulses provide good amounts of biotin, although not always in the same proportion.

Some legumes, such as peanuts and soya beans, are very rich in biotin. For example, one serving of roasted peanuts contains about 5 micrograms of biotin.

In addition, these and other pulses with lower vitamin B7 content are an excellent source of protein, fibre and micronutrients.

Mushrooms

Mushrooms also contain high amounts of biotin. Specifically, we can obtain around 5.6 micrograms of biotin from eating around 100g of fresh mushrooms.

Sweet potato

The sweet potato is a tuber that, among other nutrients, provides a good amount of vitamin B8 or biotin.

Although its content is not as high as that of the above-mentioned foods, it is still an excellent source of this vitamin.

More specifically, including sweet potato in our diet can provide us with around 2.4 micrograms of biotin per 100 g of this tuber consumed.

Other foodstuffs

In addition to those already mentioned, other foods that should also be included in our diet to boost biotin intake are: oily fish, beef liver and other organ meats, fruits such as bananas, strawberries and avocados.

How to ensure a good supply of biotin?

Biotin can help us to have strong, beautiful hair. It also prevents hair loss, which helps to maintain a full head of hair.

We should always bear in mind that, in order to preserve our general well-being, it is important to maintain a healthy, varied and balanced diet.

However, on this basis, we can boost the consumption of foods with biotin for hair if it is brittle, very thin, if we are losing more hair than usual, or simply if we want to give it extra strength.

Although we have seen which foods contain high amounts of vitamin B8, not everyone is willing or able to consume them. Moreover, even when we are able to eat them, it is not always easy to ensure that we do so in the necessary proportions and with the necessary frequency.

So if you want to make sure you get enough biotin to meet your body’s needs, you can supplement your diet.

This will be especially important if your diet is limited for any reason, which clearly reduces your biotin intake.

For example, people who are allergic to eggs will inevitably have to forego an excellent source of this vitamin. Similarly, vegans and vegetarians will not be able to use this and other animal sources of biotin, such as organ meats or oily fish.

Another situation in which biotin supplementation will be very useful is for people who, for reasons of taste, texture or other reasons, reject a large number of foods or food groups. For example, people who do not eat fruit or pulses on a daily basis.

Of course, including a biotin supplement in the diet is also highly recommended when our hair, skin or nails are damaged. The extra supply of this vitamin will help us to reverse the problem which, perhaps, with food alone would not be enough or would take much longer.

A highly recommended supplement is Living Silica Hydrolyzed Collagen Peptides, which not only provides biotin but also collagen and promotes its natural synthesis.

The combination of these ingredients will help to maintain a healthy, shiny coat and skin, but also provides additional benefits such as improved joint recovery.