Antioxidant Foods
Benefits of Antioxidants…
Foods High in Antioxidants
Before we address antioxidant foods, let’s briefly discuss the benefits of antioxidants.
First, what are they?
Antioxidants are powerful free radical scavengers. Free radicals are highly reactive chemical substances that travel around in the body and cause damage to your cells.
Many experts, in fact, believe free radical damage is one of the most prominent causes of devastating diseases that are responsible for killing many people in the Western world, such as cardiovascular disease, which can manifest as heart attacks, and cancer.
Indeed, the aging process itself has been postulated by some experts as the result of free radical damage!
Antioxidants are powerful substances that can offset free radicals before they damage your cells.
This is the major reasons why the benefits of antioxidants are talked about often in the media, and why people are advised to eat antioxidant foods — that is, foods high in antioxidants.
Antioxidant foods
Which foods high in antioxidants?
It probably doesn’t come as a surprise, but many of the foods high in antioxidants are vegetable matter.
Tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, peppers…are all excellent choices.
The key is to focus on eating those fruits and vegetables that have rich hues of color. These are high in what are known as phytonutrients.
Phytonutrients are nutrients concentrated in the skins of many vegetables and fruits, and are responsible for not just their color, but scent, and flavor as well.
Phytonutrients are the best antioxidant foods that exist in nature.
Clinical trials are now revealing that phytonutrients can enhance the strength of the immune system, and may play a role in preventing certain cancers.
So, next time you’re walking thru the produce aisle, don’t get the white onions — get the red ones. If you like grapes, skip the green ones, and purchase the red ones. Instead of green peppers, try yellow, orange, purple, or red.
In short, the rule of thumb to follow is: the deeper and richer the color of the fruit or vegetable, the more phytonutrients that are present in it.
Blueberries and bilberries are two of the best antioxidant foods you can buy — and are very rich in phytonutrients.
Antioxidant foods
Organic Fruits and Vegetables are Better
One of the main problems with mass commercialized fruits and veggies nowadays is that they are produced using chemical pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers.
Various studies over recent years have shown that organicly grown fruits and veggies are foods high in antioxidants — antioxidant foods that have a higher concentration than their mass commercialized counterparts.
One of these studies was published in the 2003 Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
The results from this study showed that the plants grown organically had vastly more polyphenolic content than those grown conventionally — polyphenols are naturally occurring antioxidants.
One analysis of a range of antioxidant foods in Canada including potatoes, tomatoes, bananas, apples, onion, broccoli etc, was commissioned by The Globe and Mail and CTV news.
The results were quite shocking!
Let’s use potatoes as an example. This is what the analysis found:
Over the last 50 years the potato has lost:
100% of its Vitamin A 57% of its Vitamin C and iron 28% of its Calcium 50% of its riboflavin 18% of its thiamine
Of the seven nutrients analyzed only niacin levels had increased.
The results were similar for all the 25 fruits and vegetables tested.
One of the worst results was from broccoli in which ALL nutrients had declined measurably including niacin with Calcium down 63%.
What’s the bottomline? The nutrients, and vitamins (which are themselves antioxidants) — in commercialized fruits and veggies are declining sharply.
If you want the best antioxidant foods, make sure you purchase only organic! Your local farmer’s market would be a great place.
Alternatives to Antioxidant Foods…
Let’s face it, in today’s busy world, we can’t always be bothered to eat well, let alone eat organic all of the time.
If you don’t have consistent access to fresh, organic fruits and veggies and other antioxidant foods you may wish to consider adding phytonutrients as a nutritional supplement.
Indeed, phytonutrient supplements have inherent advantages over certain fruits and vegetables, such as carrots, which can excessively elevate one’s blood sugar levels.
Because phytonutrient supplements are only the extract of the pigments — where the nutrients are especially concentrated — they are a superior way to derive the best “essence” of fruits and vegetables, without consuming the excess sugars and calories.
To ensure good health, we use a multi-nutrient product called Total Balance