Antioxidants are becoming the most talked about health and fitness trend in years. While we have always known that vitamins, vegetables, and fruits were good for us, we are just starting to realize how beneficial antioxidants are to our bodies. This article is going to discuss what is an antioxidant and then how you can most effectively get more in your diet.

Inside your body, free radicals roam around and damage your cells. There isn’t any reason to go into details here, but if you need to know more, head over to Wikipedia and you can get more information. Ok, so we have established that there are things refered to as free radicals in your body and they are bad news. Now, let’s see what we can do to fix that.

Antioxidants are the key to neutralizing these free radicals. It isn’t this simple, but for our purposes, let’s say that one antioxidant neutralizes one free radical. Free radicals are pretty much a given so we have to keep putting more antioxidants into our body so they can keep getting rid of the free radicals and stop the damage they cause to our cells.

You may be wondering what kind of benefits to expect from increasing your antioxidant consumption as you neutralize more free radicals. Well, it is not the same for every person, but most people feel more energy and even lose weight. In theory, as the free radicals stop destroying cells, your body stays healthier and will not age as fast. Yep, many people say that antioxidants can actually slow the aging process. I think this sounds like a really good thing.

Now I suppose you want to know where you can get more of these antioxidant things. You get antioxidants when you eat certain foods like blueberries, pomegranates, and the ever popular acia berry. If you are into green vegetables, you can also get antioxidants from broccoli. What you need to be concerned with is what the antioxidant content is in the different fruits and vegetables and how you can add them to your diet. There are two options here, you can either eat the vegetables and fruits or you can purchase a health supplement to get them. Many people opt for the supplement because it is easier and usually costs less than buying a lot of extra fresh fruits which can spoil in a matter of days.

I don’t have a complete listing of antioxidant values for you, but I do have some of the best and most popular. I’m not even going to try to explain what the number mean (it is a pretty complex and scientific), but you can plainly see that 200 antioxidants is more than 100 and with antioxidants more is better so I would say that acai berry drink is best.

Admittedly, I have not seen the actual scientific studies that produced these results, I have seen them in a lot of places so I think it is highly likely they are accurate.

* Broccoli – 900 ORAC
* Peach – 1,300 ORAC
* Strawberry – 2,600 ORAC
* Blueberry – 3,200 ORAC
* Pomegranate – 10,500 ORAC
* Acai Berry – 18,400 ORAC

That’s all I really have to share. The choice is up to you, but if I was making the decision, I would pick the food with the highest value. Supplements appeal to me more than eating whole foods because it is easier and usually cheaper. On top of that, I don’t really like vegetables and fruits a lot and swallowing a dietary supplement is easier than eating a lot of vegetables and fruits. To my untrained eye, it appears straight forward which is the highest rated, but it is up to you if you are going to take best antioxidant dietary supplement.

I thank you for visiting and keep a look out for more articles on acai berries as well as the newly popularized resveratrol supplements which was recently featured on 60 minutes. As with any new dietary supplement or vitamin, you should check with a doctor before you start taking it.

Be Sociable, Share!

•