How antioxidants and oxidants affect your life?

The antioxidants and oxidants never-ending battles has been one from many interesting health related topics over the last few years and more years to come.

What is antioxidants?

They are the good molecules which able to slow and stop the oxidation process of other molecules. What is the connection between free radicals and antioxidants?

The oxidation process or what you know as oxidants able to transform into the notorious free radicals that can further create a series of chain reactions that able to mutate our cells.

The mutated cells can further develop into cancers, and various other diseases, as scary as it sounds and it is true reality we should face nowadays. What should we do and to avoid such horrible things to happen in our life?

The good news is your life-span and genetics can be protected in various ways but one really stands above the rest, by consuming more rich antioxidants food sources.

What is antioxidants good for? How they can prevent oxidants from growing? The antioxidant’s terminology was first introduced to refer a chemical that have stopped the oxygen being consumed.

Few decades ago, the application of antioxidants can be found in some industrial processes, from rubber vulcanization, fuels polymerization, and preventing corrosion in metals.

Biologists and scientists conducted researches using antioxidant to inhibit the oxidation of unsaturated fat grows, that often become rancid if being left to develop.

Antioxidant, a molecule that able to slow carcinogenic that causing cancers to grow and preventing them to stay inside your body.

How antioxidants work?

They will capture the free radicals so that carcinogenic does not have the chance to damage the DNA.

Antioxidants can both preventing and inhibiting the cancer growth. Vitamin A, C, E, and D are renowned for their antioxidant nature.

Those vitamins can be found inside fruits and vegetables that also carrying chlorophyll, carotenoid on red and yellow color fruits, polyphenol, flavonoid in tea, isoflavone in ginger and soybeans.

All those organic compounds found in fruits and vegetables capable to operate as antioxidant.

Beta carotene for instance, is relatively powerful antioxidant that supports our immune system to protect the cells from free radicals by suppressing negative effects that these bad molecules inflict.

Antioxidant rich foods list you might want to remember

• Flavonoid – Green tea
• Vitamin E – almond nuts, few types of cooking oils like corn oil, soy-bean oil, safflower oil, and wheat germ oil. Vitamin E can also be found in mangoes and broccoli.
• Vitamin C – kiwi, Pomegranate, strawberry, green peppers, spinach, and cauliflower
• Vitamin A – yam, carrots, milk, egg yolks, and mozzarella cheese
• Selenium – rice and wheat are the selenium’s primary source
• Lycopene – an antioxidant that proven effective against free radicals. You can find lycopene from tomatoes, watermelon, papaya, apricots, and oranges.
• Lutein – almost all green vegetables such as spinach, mustard, and kale
• Beta-carotene - mostly found in orange to red vegetables and fruits, such as yam, carrots, pumpkins, apricot, and mangoes.

When you choose vegetables and fruits, pick those with colors. The more and the deeper the color, the more antioxidants will each fruit and vegetable have.

Try to avoid frozen and canned fruits, as well as vegetables. Frozen, processed, and canned food will have the amount of antioxidants to decline.

• When looking for carrots, sweet potatoes, and pumpkins try to get those with the deepest orange colors
• As mentioned before, you might need to pick fresh fruits rather than those are canned. The same with vegetables, avoid those are canned, however you still can eat and get enough antioxidants from frozen vegetables.
• You better eat whole fruits rather than juiced ones
• White grapefruit or the pink one? Answer: the pink one
• Cooking green vegetables first pick the greenest and the darker the color and still maintain its freshness
• Cold processed extra virgin olive oils
• Boiled, steamed, or microwaved vegetables? Answer: Microwaved vegetables
• Eat more raw and crushed garlic for more antioxidants, and reducing high blood pressure at the same time.
• Lightly cooked broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage. How about raw? Even better!
• Choose yellow and red onions over the white ones
• Choose red grapes over the white and green grapes

To be continued...please click here for more information about oxidants and free radicals