We have all been hearing for some time now that antioxidants are a really important and healthy addition to our daily diet. But if you’re like me, though you jump at the opportunity to add any food, beverage or vitamin that claims antioxidant power to your diet, you don’t quite know what all the hype is about. For your benefit (and mine), here’s a brief lesson on why antioxidants are so important.
First, it would probably be important to know why it is that we need antioxidants in the first place. After doing some research, I found that it all starts with the naturally occurring process of oxidation. Here is a quick overview of what that process is and why as a result antioxidants have become so important to us.
"Oxidation is a normal process that takes place in the body. It causes damage to our cells, and it's believed that this cumulative damage is what causes aging and eventually death. It happens as a result of regular metabolism, but is accelerated by pollution, excessive exposure to sunlight, alcohol and smoking. A free radical is a charged atom or a piece of a molecule. In order to re-establish its own stability, a free radical looks to steal an electron from its surroundings. This usually means from one of your own healthy cells. You end up with a little bit of DNA damage, or a protein becomes dysfunctional. It may not seem like much, but all these little damages add up. Antioxidants are chemicals that generously offer up their own electrons to the free radicals, thus sparing you the cellular damage. Every time they neutralize a free radical, the antioxidant loses an electron and stops being able to function as an antioxidant. This is why you must continually resupply your body with the vitamins and other chemicals that act as antioxidants."
Ok, so now that we know how important they are, Where Can We Find Them?
- Vitamins C and E
- Beta-Carotin
- Selenium
- Nuts
- Fruits
- Vegetables
- Meats
- *Tea
For our discussion today- we will now focus on Tea. The specific kinds of antioxidants found in tea are called phenols, and they can also be found in a variety of berries and grapes. A growing body of research indicates that the tannins in tea are naturally-occurring flavonoids which have strong antioxidant properties. Drinking tea is a natural and pleasant way to increase dietary intake of antioxidants. Researchers indicated that it doesnt' matter if you choose black or green tea and that adding milk to tea, does not inhibit the body's ability to benefit from the antioxidants. Research suggests these phytonutrients may contribute substantially to the promotion of health and the prevention of chronic disease. For example, the antioxidants in tea may inhibit the growth of cancer cells and even support cardiovascular health!
82-year-old John Weisburger, PhD, senior researcher at the Institute for Cancer Prevention in Valhalla, N.Y. has the following to say about including tea as an antioxidant enhancing element into your diet. “Whether it's green or black, tea has about eight to 10 times the polyphenols found in fruits and vegetables. In my lab, we found that green and black tea had identical amounts of polyphenols. We found that both types of tea blocked DNA damage associated with tobacco and other toxic chemicals. In animal studies, tea-drinking rats have less cancer." For comparisons sake look at the world's big tea drinkers, like Japan and China. "They have much less heart disease and don't have certain cancers that we in the Western world suffer," says Weisburger.
So… You should think about heading in to your closest Keva Juice for a Hot Cup of Antioxidants today!
Information for the above post borrowed from the following sites:
http://www.cookscorner.net/Tea/Antioxidants.html
http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/antioxidants-in-green-and-black-tea
http://coffeetea.about.com/library/weekly/aa012303antioxidants.htm
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