Antioxidants

I thought I would dedicate a post to antioxidants since there is such a hype around it at the moment. Everyone is talking about it and how good it is for you, but what is it really?

Antioxidants are nutrients that helps protect our bodies from the mass of harmful toxins we're exposed to every day. These unwanted toxins are mostly made up of oxidants, hence the name antioxidants. Oxidants are released whenever something is burnt whether it be a cigarette, fuel or even the food our bodies burn for energy. These oxidants are responsible for damaging the cells that your body is built from which can cause aging and disease. Fortunately, these toxins can be essentially disabled by our friend the antioxidant, the most effective of which come in the form of vitamins A, C and E as well as anthocyanins.

Antioxidants are found in varying amounts in foods such as vegetables, fruits, grain cereals, eggs, meat, legumes and nuts. Some antioxidants  can be destroyed by long-term storage or prolonged cooking meaning that processed foods contain fewer antioxidants than fresh and uncooked foods.

Examples of food high in antioxidants are:

Gojiberries, Pomegranate, Berries (especially wild blueberries),  Red Beans, Walnuts, Sunflowerseeds, Kiwi, Prunes, Red beets, Spinach, Green Tea, etc.

To make it easy for myself I just keep in mind that generally, most red fruits, vegetables and berries are rich in antioxidants, the darker the red colour the more antioxidants.

To be honest, I don't beleive that eating heaps of blueberries and red beans magically will remove your wrinkles or save you from all diseases. What I do beleive though, is that a lot of people eat too much processed food which will lead to that they don't get enough antioxidants and hence might get diseases or age faster than people that eat fresh food. Of course this is just what I think and I don't have proof for it but I hope you all agree with me that sticking to the fresh stuff makes much more sense!