The Importance of Antioxidants in Fruits and Vegetables

Fall has arrived and with the crisp weather comes a cornucopia of delightful fruits and vegetables that not only taste great but are excellent health boosters, as well! Fruits and vegetables are packed with powerful antioxidants that can lower your risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes-related damage and even slow down the body's natural aging process. So grab an apple and read on…

What exactly are antioxidants and why do we need them? Antioxidants are nature's way of fighting off potentially dangerous molecules in the body. Such molecules come in the form of synthetic chemicals such as pesticides, plastics, and chlorine byproducts and are called free radicals. Free radicals are unstable molecules that essentially feed off of otherwise healthy molecules in order to survive. Every day tens of thousands of free radicals are generated within the body, causing cell damage that can lead to chronic and degenerative diseases if left unchecked.

The body sometimes creates its own free radicals in order to destroy viruses or bacteria. To balance out these unruly molecules, the body also creates antioxidants, which have the sole purpose of neutralizing free radicals. The body is only designed to create a certain amount of antioxidants on its own however, and as we are faced with an ever-growing number of environmental toxins, the body is less capable of fighting off the unwanted harmful invaders.

Fruits and vegetables provide the body with an added source of antioxidants that is needed to properly wage war against free radicals. Without the necessary intake of healthy fruits and vegetables, free radicals can spread and eventually lead to stroke, heart attack, arthritis, vision problems, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease and various types of cancer.

The benefits of getting your daily dose of fruits and vegetables are numerous! The antioxidant, Vitamin E, is wonderful for your heart. Vitamin E has the ability to essentially "mop up" the LDL ("bad") cholesterol in your arteries, allowing for the necessary elasticity and blood pressure levels to keep your heart pumping safely. Cholesterol, if left untreated, builds up as plaque on the inside walls of the arteries, impeding blood flow LDL and forcing the heart to work overtime to continue functioning. Eventually, plaque buildup can become so severe that it can create a blockage in the artery, leading to heart attack or stroke. By getting enough Vitamin E in your diet you can give your body the necessary antioxidants to prevent your LDL cholesterol levels from getting out of control.

Antioxidants can protect you against diabetes related damage. Free radicals thrive in the altered metabolic states of diabetics. But with the necessary antioxidants that fruits and vegetables can provide, free radicals can be neutralized, protecting your kidneys, blood vessels, eyes and heart from harmful damage.

Free radicals cause cancer cells to grow. Many studies have linked cancer, including those of the stomach, prostate, colon, breast, bladder, esophagus and pancreas, to free radicals. Eating your fruits and vegetables may not prevent cancer altogether, but can give your body the fighting chance that it needs. Antioxidants can neutralize cancer cells before they develop into a mass. A recent study at Harvard University found that men who ate the most tomato based foods (rich in antioxidants) had a 35% lower risk of developing prostate cancer than those who ate the least amount of tomato based foods.

Antioxidants slow the effects of aging! Free radicals damage the cells within our body that are vital to a youthful appearance and good health. Eating fruits and vegetables can slow down the loss of muscle elasticity that leads to wrinkles, boost your immunity making you less susceptible to illness, and put the breaks on memory failure, as free radicals injure the brain cells necessary for retaining information. Antioxidants are available in supplement form but are the most powerful when found in whole foods. The best practice is to combine a "greens" supplement (containing vitamins, minerals and antioxidants found in produce) with the recommended 5 to 9 servings of fruits and vegetables each day. Leafy vegetables, like spinach and collard greens, and orange colored fruits and vegetables such as mangos, oranges, cantaloupe, sweet potatoes and carrots are all excellent sources of the antioxidant beta-carotene. Fruits and vegetables containing lycopene, such as tomatoes, watermelon, guava, papaya, apricots and pink grapefruit, are also packed with antioxidants.

It is important that when you are purchasing fruits and vegetables for yourself and your family that you shop in the organic section. The produce available in most stores no longer contains the level of nutrients that it did 100 years ago. Because of pesticides and the diminished mineral levels in soils used today, eating non-organic produce will not provide you with the antioxidants (or vitamins and minerals) that your body needs. On average, organic produce contains nearly 30% more nutrients than non-organic and is grown without using harsh chemicals that can lead to further free radical exposure. Autumn is a great time to start a new healthy habit that your family will love, and eating 5 to 9 servings a day of scrumptious organic fruits and vegetables really can keep the doctor away.

About the author

Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D. has specialized in Integrative Medicine for over twenty years, using conventional and natural methods to determine and discover the "root of the cause" in her clinic, Center for New Medicine in Irvine, California, each and every day. Many people come in to the clinic from all over the world with severe chronic illnesses that conventional medical protocols have been unsuccessful treating. She realized early on that she can truly change lives through education as well as treatment protocols.
Leigh Erin Connealy, M.D. and her medical staff strives to look at the whole person while exploring the effects and relationships among nutrition, psychological and social factors, environmental effects and personal attunement. Out of frustration of trying to find the right products to help her patients she formulated the perfectlyhealthy brand of products. All perfectlyhealthy products are clinically tested. For more information on recommended products, please visit www.perfectlyhealthy.net or www.perfectlyhealthy.com.

Alkaline Food Diet (taken from eating-veggies.com)

When alkaline foods are eaten in abundance, they become the true nourishment needed to calm the unending urge to eat. When your body thinks that it is starving, it will conserve fat and began to signal the brain to activate your appetite. Veggies and fruit are full of the vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients that we need to live. And still we continue to eat the same acidic, lifeless foods everyday, slowly starving our bodies cells. And the body continues to store this food as fat everyday.

Many plant foods are anti-inflammatory foods, which means that they can help reduce the inflammation found throughout the body. Much inflammation is the result of a poor diet high in pro-inflammatory foods. Many alkaline foods are anti-inflammatory. Some researchers believe that inflammation is the root cause of most disease suffered by people in the modern world.

The cure for many sick and overweight people in the modern world may be an alkaline foods diet that contains live enzymes.

Eating cooked vegetables and other cooked alkaline foods is better than not eating any veggies at all but eating an abundance of living raw foods is the key to healthy living. The optimal strategy for good health is a 50-80% alkaline foods diet daily. Eating alkaline foods in their raw form is best for rejuvenating your body. Live enzymes are found in raw plant food. Enzymes are essential in building and maintaining health. These living microscopic structures are in all fresh, raw fruits, nuts, seeds and vegetables and are necessary to help digest food when we eat it.

Digestive enzymes are used to break food down into its nutritional component parts so that our bodies can sort out the nutrients and utilize them throughout the body for repair and maintenance. However, cooking alkaline foods also destroys enzymes. While trying to digest cooked food, our body has to rob enzymes from our own enzyme reserves, ultimately depleting them and weakening our immune system and decreasing our ability to fight off unfriendly bacteria and viruses. What was once a living alkaline edible substance becomes totally dead very rapidly with exposure to high heat.

Eating mostly cooked acidic food every day is not helping to improve our health situation. Actually, it is beginning to age us very quickly. Today, doctor's are treating children for diabetes, juvenile arthritis and other degenerative diseases that used to afflict people in their older years. Almost all non-genetic diseases are a result of lack of digestion of raw, alkaline foods and improper elimination of the foods we eat. Plant foods that are high in fiber should become an important part of your diet. Some people go an entire day without an elimination and in most cases, this is not healthy. Eating processed, lifeless food stuffs in huge amounts every day is draining you of your life-force. Alkaline foods contain the life giving properties that we need to help pH balance.

In order to live long healthy lives, humans must eat plenty of living, alkaline foods at every meal. Enzymes are the life force of all people and can be found in raw, plant foods. If we do not eat enough enzymes, more digestive enzymes must be taken from our bodies own dwindling enzyme reserves. Over time our enzyme reserves are depleted and our immune systems become weak and acidic, which in turn leads to diseases such as cancer, diabetes, arthritis, and most non-genetic diseases known to man.

* Cooking destroys the enzymes we need to live and slow aging.
* COOKED FOOD is DEAD FOOD!
* Eating an abundance of nutrient dense foods such as green, leafy veggies can slow aging.
* Alkaline foods are needed to prevent the leaching of calcium from our bones and teeth.
* Enzymes are needed to help prevent body toxicity. (waste backup)
* Un-eliminated waste poisons the body and weakens our immune system.
* Acid-forming foods such as meat and dairy are aging us quickly!
* Our bodies prefer a slightly alkaline pH balance.
* We must eat meals rich in live, alkaline foods everyday.

Eating a plant-based, high alkaline food diet is best for the human race and the more plant foods you eat, the better you will probably feel. Alkaline foods are essential to a healthy lifestyle! Your body needs plant enzymes from green, alkaline foods to help regulate every biochemical and metabolic process in your body. Cooking food destroys the very force that keeps us alive and healthy. When eating to improve your pH balance, always eat a diet high in raw fruits and veggies.

An Apple A Day!!

An apple a day. Our doctors urge us all to eat at least 5 fresh fruit and veggie servings per day—and they are on to something big! On a very basic level, research shows that cooking produces free radicals, cancer-causing agents in the cells. Eating more raw fare not only eliminates these cooking-generated cancer-causers, it also boosts your immunity and healing time, reverses the progression of chronic degenerative disease, facilitates the elimination of toxins, and has a radiant effect on your skin.