Home Chef Cooking Tips

It is a widely accepted fact in scientific circles that eating foods rich in antioxidants help to protect your body from harmful free radicals. By helping to neutralize these radicals, antioxidants provide a barrier against heart disease, premature aging and some types of cancer.

By neutralizing free radicals that enter your body, antioxidants provide a protective barrier within your body. Free radicals are simply chemically active atoms or molecule fragments. They are active because they are electrically charged, either positively, missing electron(s), or negatively, containing excessive electron(s). This electrical charge seeks to become neutralize itself by scavenging your body to remove (or donate) electrons, in the process damaging your healthy cells.

Free radicals are generated naturally within, and are generated externally. Internal sources of free radicals include aerobic respiration, metabolism, and inflammation. External sources include sunlight, strenuous exercise, x-rays, smoking, alcohol and pollution.

Regardless of the source excessive free radicals (generated by pollutants) can cause damage to your body in excess of what it can naturally combat. Every time a free radical is neutralized by an antioxidant, the antioxidant itself is consumed, and is no longer able to defend your body. This is why your body’s level of antioxidants must be maintained.

The most antioxidant rich foods are nuts and berries – natural and unprocessed – which make a very tasty and healthy snack.

The top seven antioxidant rich nuts and berries (in terms of antioxidant content per serving) are:

-          Blackberries

-          Walnuts

-          Strawberries

-          Cranberries

-          Raspberries

-          Pecans

-          Blueberries

To make sure that your child receives the full benefit of theses nutritional powerhouses, each healthy snack should be at least a single serving in size.

For the berries, a single serving is 1/2 cup, and for nuts a single serving is 1 oz, or approximately 1/4 cup.