What are antioxidants and how do they benefit our health?

True Health speaks to Egzona Makolli, technical and commercial nutritionist at Kinetic Enterprises Limited, to ask her all the common questions regarding antioxidants.

What are antioxidants?
Antioxidants are molecules which inhibit oxidation of other molecule and are essential to our health. Antioxidants are nutrients (vitamins and minerals) as well as enzymes which are believed to play a role in preventing the development of many chronic disorders such as heart disease, arthritis and cancer.

Why should we include them in our diet – how do they benefit our health?
Our body does produce some antioxidants on its own, which constantly battle the on-going small amounts of oxidative damage in the body. In the current world, we are exposed to many free radical forming substances such as pollution and through some foods. It is therefore essential to include some antioxidants to our diet to battle this, current evidence suggest that a diet high antioxidant containing foods can reduce the risk of developing many lifestyle diseases. Fruits and vegetables contain the best sources of antioxidants and it’s essential to include a wide variety of these.

In terms of diet, how can we ensure a healthy consumption of antioxidants?
Antioxidants are present in fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as wholegrains. Fruits and vegetables which have a bright, characteristic colour such as blueberries (purple), carrots (orange) and tomatoes (red) are rich in potent antioxidants.

Many vitamins and minerals have antioxidant properties, vitamin A, C and E are the most well known potent antioxidants.

Foods which contain large amounts of antioxidants include:

• Carrots
• Green vegetables (kale and spinach)
• Berries, grapes and cherries
• Green tea
• Citrus fruits

By including a variety of fruits and vegetables to at least two of your meals and snacks will ensure that you consume a healthy dose of antioxidants daily.

Are there any antioxidant supplements or products you would recommend?

Amazing Grass ORAC Green SuperFood is a powerful blend of nutritious greens, phytonutrient-packed fruits, veggies and cereal grasses. One serving provides a highly potent 15,000 ORAC units from a high quality blend of antioxidant rich fruits, vegetables and herbs.

Nature’s Answer ORAC Super-7 is a concentrated blend of high ORAC berry and fruit extracts, with one serving containing 46,200mg proprietary bio-active blend of antioxidants from goji berries, pomegranate, green coffee bean, muscadine grape and blueberries.

Organic Traditions Antioxidant Berry Blast is a delicious blend of antioxidant rich blueberries, acai berries, maqui berries and camu camu berries, a mixture of nature’s antioxidant rich superfruits. One serving of Antioxidant Berry Blast delivers an ORAC value of 2,600, with no fillers, flavours, sugars or excipients added, just pure antioxidant rich berries.