Just as the name implies, antioxidants act against oxidation. Oxidation is a chemical process that occurs naturally in our bodies as our cells use oxygen for everyday processes. This creates harmful substances known as 'free radicals'. Free radical damage can often be the start of many serious degenerative conditions in the body and this is why antioxidants are so important. Antioxidants literally circulate around the body cleaning up the oxidative damage.
A good analogy for this process is smoke coming out of an active power plant - the smoke is the inevitable by-product that needs to be dealt with in order for the power to be produced. With humans, lifestyle choices, poor diet, smoking, various drugs, vaccines and polluted air can increase the burden of free radicals by ten-fold. These free radicals are unstable particles that roam freely through the body changing the structure of substances they encounter and leaving them inactive or transformed beyond use.
The body's natural mechanism for counteracting this free radical problem is by utilising antioxidant substances that have the ability to stabilise and neutralise the potentially harmful free radicals. We often hear the word 'antioxidant' bantered around in the media or in promotional texts but how do you know which antioxidants to choose?
There are many different types of antioxidants and each one has different benefits and areas-of-expertise depending on a) if they are water soluble or fat soluble - i.e. antioxidant vitamins A, D & E are fat soluble, whereas vitamin C is water soluble; b) the type of free radical they can quench; c) the amount of free radicals they quench; d) their interaction with other antioxidants.
So where do I find these antioxidants? Well, Mother Nature has provided an abundance of antioxidants in all our fresh fruits and vegetables. Many antioxidants are in the form of vitamins, minerals and plant substances in fresh food. For example, vitamins A, C, D, E and minerals such as zinc & selenium are potent antioxidants found in food. Also plant substances such as flavonoids & enzymes are also antioxidants, these are commonly known as substances, which provide our fruits and vegetables with colour. The reds and purples of many berries, tomatoes, capsicum, beetroot, eggplant etc are all loaded with antioxidants. The greens, yellows and oranges of citrus fruit, kiwifruit, peaches, nectarines, capsicum, pineapple, mangoes as well as fresh beans, broccoli, spinach and silver-beet are also excellent sources of antioxidants.
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