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Healthy Living Nutrition Enhance Your Diet
Healthy Living Nutrition Enhance Your Diet
| Enhance Your Diet |
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| Nutrition | |||||||
| Written by Amanda Johnston | |||||||
| Monday, 19 October 2009 21:52 | |||||||
Antioxidants: Nature’s Preservatives You hear a lot of gab about antioxidants and free radicals in television commercials and on the packaging for green tea products, but do you actually know what these things are? Antioxidants are molecules that prevent or slow the harmful effects of oxidation in our cells. Oxidation is a chemical reaction that takes place when oxygen comes into contact with substances. Think of how an apple slice turns brown when it sits out. That’s oxidation. Most of the time, our bodies metabolize oxygen efficiently, but about 1-2% of our cells do become damaged during this process, forming free radicals. Free radicals feed off of healthy cells, mutating the DNA and leaving them susceptible to disease. Free radicals are found in concentration in cigarette smoke and alcohol, yet another reason to steer clear of those substances. In addition, foods treated with pesticides and other toxins also have high concentrations of free radicals. That is why antioxidants are so important. Our bodies process substances like Vitamins C and E in order to counteract the damaging effects of free radicals. Many people believe that taking antioxidant-rich supplements helps fight diseases like cancer and coronary heart disease, however that has been debated. Enhance Your Diet with These Antioxidant-Rich Foods When you think antioxidants, you may think blueberries, and you would be correct. However, it might surprise you that many of our everyday foods are great sources of antioxidants, too. According to a recent study published in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, many foods you may never consider are in fact plentiful sources of antioxidants. Broken down into categories, the top three antioxidant-rich fruits, vegetables, nuts, and spices are listed as follows: Fruit- cranberries, blueberries, blackberries Vegetable- beans, artichokes, Russet potatoes Nut- pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts Spices- ground cloves, cinnamon, oregano. While many foods may be rich in antioxidants, however, not all antioxidants are able to be broken down by our bodies, and are thus ineffective in fighting free radicals. While the foods listed above are recommended as good sources of soluble antioxidants, you should know that cooking these foods can sometimes reduce the antioxidant levels contained within, such as with potatoes. A noted exception to that rule is the tomato, which, when cooked, actually increases in antioxidant levels. Sources: 1. “How Antioxidants Work,” www.medicinnet.com 2. “Antioxidants,” www.wikipedia.org 3. "Antioxidant Rich Foods," www.webmd.com Quote this article on your site To create link towards this article on your website, copy and paste the text below in your page. Preview :
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