Phytonutrients are powerful and healthy substances to include in your diet.They are plant compounds with health-promoting qualities and can also be found in liquid vitamin supplements.Their importance in your health regimen is unbelievably important!

Fruits and vegetables that are high in carotenoids appear to protect humans against certain cancers, heart disease and age related macular degeneration. Elderly men whose intake of dark green and deep yellow vegetable put them in the highest quartile for consumption of these vegetables had about a 46% decrease in risk of heart disease relative to men who ranked in the lowest quartile.While these phytonutrients aren’t essential by traditional definitions, they apparently reduce risks of diseases of aging. This can reduce cardiovascular disease risk by interfering with the clumping of blood plateletsthe first stagein clot formation. Lycopene from tomatoes can also be a preventive measure in regards to your health. Lycopene,for example,from tomatoes is in clinical trials for cardiovascular diseases and prostate cancer. A host of fresh fruits, especially berries

are rich in disease-fighting phytochemicals. Serious diseases such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, stomach ulcers. More than 80% of all chronic disease is preventable, but only if you know how.

If you want to accelerate your aging process, and shorten your life, the way to do that is to do what most Americans are doing already: avoid physical exercise, eat a large percentage of your diet from fast foods and junk foods, consume large quantities of white flour and refined white sugar, eat brand-name groceries sold in beautiful boxes and made with dirt-cheap ingredients that lack any nutritional content whatsoever, and of course, avoid supplementing with super foods and other nutritional supplements. Protein and carbohydrates are the chief components of nutrition. These protective plant compounds are becoming an emerging area of health and nutrition, with new research reported almost daily. Scientists are finding that foods once considered to be low in nutritional value are actually packed with powerful antioxidants. We believe phytonutrients are an inexpensive and convenient way to get the nutritional benefits of eating fresh fruits and vegetables — and to get these benefits each and every day. Still,a true nutritional role for phytochemicals is becoming more probable every day as researchers uncover more and more benefits. Research has brought the plant-disease connection to the attention of the world.

For those of you in my situation, we are probably not consuming the necessary dosage of vitamins and minerals that our bodies need to stay healthy, unless we are taking some form of vitamin supplement. Libraries of information exist about vitamins, but phytonutrients are newcomers to the health-food table. Dietary fat is necessary for absorption of vitamins, nutrients and phytochemicals from fruits and vegetables. A fascinating new study published by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition shows that dietary fat is necessary for the absorption of nutrients from fruits and vegetables. However, phytonutrients go beyond vitamins and minerals they are more obscure, are present in much smaller amounts and usually have profound effects on our health. Today, numerous researchers worldwide are endeavoring to investigate and confirm possible functional properties in foods, phytonutrient or otherwise, beyond the more familiar vitamins and minerals, that could be efficient in preventing the common diseases of aging such as macular degeneration, heart disease, atherosclerosis, diabetes, dementia, and cancer. Even if you are eating the recommended daily amounts of fruits and vegetables, you’re STILL not getting all of the phytonutrients and vitamins your body MUST have to function properly. RELATED ARTICLE: Tracing Elements and Vitamins A Chinese document dating back 5,000 years described goiter–an enlarged thyroid gland–and recommended that afflicted people eat seaweed and burnt sponge–both good sources of iodine. In the 20’s & 30’s,11 of the 15 vitamins were discovered. Some vitamins, such as vitamin C, are antioxidants in their own right.

Antioxidant phytos can interfere with the damaging effects of LDL cholesterol on arteries. Antioxidant phytos, especially beta carotene, can block this process and thus prevent cardiovascular disease. Antioxidants also help to prevent damage by carcinogens, such as ultraviolet radiation, tobacco smoke, and environmental pollutants. Cellular damage can be prevented when antioxidants attack the carcinogens and render them useless. One of the most important roles of phytos is acting as antioxidants. Your body needs more antioxidant police officers as you get older, since the body’s ability to repair itself diminishes with age. There are hundreds, if not thousands of them, and they have effects such as antioxidants, boosting the immune system, anti-inflammatory, antiviral, antibacterial, and cellular repair. In numbers of studies, these antioxidant pigments have been found to reduce heart disease, cancer, and other ailments that are the result of oxidative damage.

Essentially, the reason why we should eat vegetables and other healthy foods is because they contain a good amount of all the good things we see in the nutrition facts chart that our body needs… and not much of the bad stuff. Also, because it’s a better food to eat as opposed to chips and candy as a regular diet… obviously.
But in terms of the nutrients that we gain from vegetables… why can’t I just take a really good multivitamin supplement (plus whatever else that particular one doesn’t have… like fiber supplements etc..). If I managed to find vitamins that contained everything I needed on a daily basis…. why should I eat vegetables?
Is there any other benefit? Or for the veggie haters like myself, can I opt with vitamins/supplements as a complete replacement for my veggie requirements? (assuming I don’t eat extra junk food/bad food to replace the lesser amount of food on my plate).

Some people say that drinking of tea is good for health, but in fact, drinking green tea would be an ideal choice. The main constituent that makes the green tea so healthy is the antioxidants. First, what is antioxidant and why is it necessary?

Oxidation is a routine body process that causes destruction of human cells. Many studies proved that this accumulative destruction is what triggers aging and death. It takes place because of normal metabolism, but fastens due to too much exposure to sun, pollution, smoking and alcohol.

Antioxidants are chemical substances that protect body cells from injury caused by unstable molecules called free radicals. A free radical is a kind of charged atom or a part of a molecule.

Damage by these free radicals could lead to tumor. Antioxidants alleviate by interacting with free radicals. Effective antioxidants include lycopene, beta-carotene, vitamin E, A and C.

To re-establish their stability, free radicals take an electron from their surroundings. Normally they take electrons from one of human’s healthy cells. At this point, antioxidants come into play a vital role by offering its own electrons to the free radicals. Thus, they prevent the body from cellular damage.

Each time, when the free radicals take electrons, antioxidants give away an electron and eventually stop reacting as antioxidants. Thus, it is advisable to supply necessary antioxidant vitamins and other antioxidant supplements to act as antioxidants.

Antioxidant Supplements and Vitamins:

Antioxidants are rich in fruits as well as vegetables. It also found in abundance in foodstuffs such as nuts, poultry, fish, grains and meats.

• Beta-carotene is very useful as antioxidant supplement and found mostly in sweet potatoes, squash, cantaloupe, apricots, carrots, mangoes and pumpkin. A few green leafy vegetables such as kale, spinach, collard greens are also abundant in beta-carotene.

• Vitamin A plays an essential role in the antioxidant production. It is one of the effective antioxidant vitamins found abundant in sweet potatoes, mozzarella cheese, carrots, egg yolks and milk.

• Vitamin E is also one of the main antioxidant vitamins found commonly in almonds and in oils such as wheat germ, soybean and corn oil. It is abundant in mangoes, broccoli, nuts and other foodstuffs.

Most of us have heard that antioxidant vitamins have many health benefits and can even prevent cancer. But getting the correct intake of antioxidants every day as not as simple as eating your fruits and veggies regularly. Find out how to take the most advantage of antioxidants in everyday life and to stay younger and healthier.

Cancer can affect anybody, and despite all the cancer research there is still no real cure for it. That is why it is so important for everybody, to take some preventive measures against cancer. The best way to prevent cancer is to include antioxidant vitamins into your everyday diet.

We all know how bad free radicals can be for our health. But what are they? To put it simply, free radicals are particles that allow extra oxygen into human cells, which causes the cells to break. Antioxidant vitamins can stop this distractive process.

Antioxidant vitamins rich foods

All doctors recommend including a variety of fruits and vegetables into your diet. These bring many benefits to your health, being low in fat and high in fiber. But they are also very rich in antioxidants. Brightly colored vegetables and fruits contain the most antioxidants. So including beetroot, carrots and red capsicum in your everyday menu, would serve you a reasonable amount of antioxidants.

Here are foods with highest content of antioxidants

- cherries,

- blackberry,

- strawberry,

- blueberry,

- red grape

- walnuts

- sunflower seeds

- ginger

- spices

- green tea

- coffee without milk

Common vitamins like Vitamin A, Vitamin C and Vitamin E are all powerful antioxidants, so all fruits rich in these vitamins should be included. But there are many more, for example red wine and red grape contains Reservatrol, an important antioxidant. Another great antioxidant Flavonoid can be found in green tea. So, the most sensible thing to do is to include a wide variety of different fruits, vegetables and berries in your diet. Berries are particularly good, because they all contain large quantities of antioxidant vitamins.

And there is one more source of antioxidants, a food that is usually on a “bad for you” list – chocolate. But it has to be dark chocolate; milk chocolate doesn’t have antioxidant properties. When you eat chocolate, or any antioxidant food, avoid drinking milk at the same time. Milk significantly reduces the effect of antioxidants.

Antioxidant vitamin supplements – are they any good?

Getting vitamins and antioxidants from natural sources is of cause the best. However, with our busy lives many people can’t eat as much fresh produce as they would like. Also bear in mind that when you buy vegetables and fruits during winter months, their antioxidant value is very low. Most vitamins are easily destroyed by light and storage, so tomatoes that are sold in a supermarket in December give you almost no health benefits, even though in general a tomato is considered a good source of antioxidants.

In this case antioxidant supplements can be beneficial. There are plenty of vitamins and dietary supplements on the market. Some of them are specifically marketed as “antioxidant supplements” others are just a variety of vitamins. Many multivitamins contains 100% of all essential vitamins for your health. Also remember, that Vitamin C is an antioxidant, and multivitamins usually don’t contain enough of Vitamin C. So it makes since to take additional Vitamin C supplements.

Whether or not vitamin supplements are as good for you as antioxidants from natural sources is debatable. Some doctors say that by taking antioxidant supplements you can meet most of your antioxidant needs. Others argue that supplements are not as beneficial as vitamins you get from food.

The problem is that vitamins in a pill are not as easily absorbed by our bodies as nutrients we get from food. So eating mostly fast food and taking antioxidant vitamin supplements to compensate is not such a good idea after all.

You can also get natural antioxidant supplements, like grape seed extract. These are absorbed better, than synthetic vitamins.

More health benefits of antioxidants

The best you can do for yourself is to include antioxidant rich foods in your diet and take antioxidants supplements if you feel that you need additional antioxidant boost. But only take quality antioxidant supplements, when it comes to vitamins they are not the same.