Antioxidants are vital if you want to improve your health. Luckily many of the foods that you can find at the supermarket produce aisle, your local health food store and farmer’s market are rich with good for you antioxidants.
Antioxidants are a compound found in many foods that are critical to our fine health. When our bodies employ oxygen for its processes, an oxygen free radical is formed. A free radical is a molecule that is missing one or more electrons, which makes it tremendously unstable and destructive to our bodies. It creates inflammation, which is a source of many of the ailments that we face. An antioxidant comes in and donates an electron thus stabilizing the molecule. In short, antioxidants ease inflammation in our bodies.
The way that antioxidant aptitude in food is calculated is by a scale referred to as ORAC or the Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity. The food is assigned a number based upon how well the antioxidants it contains were able to counteract free radicals in a test tube. The higher the ORAC number is, the higher the antioxidant facility of the food.
Two delightfully wonderful foods that have the highest score of real foods are dried, unsweetened cocoa, which chocolate is made from and the acai berry from the rainforests of Brazil. Dark chocolate that contains 60 to 70% cocoa is one of the most luscious and satisfying health foods there is.
Acai berries are also tasty. These little berries have been described as tasting like a ripe blueberry dipped in dark chocolate. Acai berry products are offered as a variety of juices, smoothie mixes and even tablets and capsules. It is not possible to have the fresh fruit outside of Brazil because the berry is so perishable but advanced processing methods have made it possible to now have the berry in other parts of the world.
An alternative food that is delicious and pleasing but also extremely high in antioxidants is red wine. Red wine is high in a compound called anthocyanins, which is actually the pigment that produces the deep dark colors of nature, including the red grapes, deep blue blueberries, and the blackish purple of blackberries. Red wine is advantageous in modest amounts as even though there are huge health advantages with alcohol, there is also the hazard of serious problems caused by over-consumption. In spite of this, if you can restrict yourself to one wineglass of wine a day it can be a pleasant way to get a excellent amount of antioxidants.
Even though red wine is high in anthocyanins, the acai berry actually has 10 to 30 times the amount of this crucial antioxidant. Anthocyanins have been proven to be advantageous for the prevention of cardiovascular disease and even for possible weight loss in certain studies.
You can get acai berry products as a smoothie mix, delicious juices and even capsules and pills. Eat some acai berry product every day, add in 1 ounce of high quality, dark chocolate and calm down with one glass of red wine and you will have received a wholesome dosage of essential antioxidants.
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