THE ANTIOXIDANTS

Vitamin C, vitamin A, selenium, beta-carotene, vitamin E

Sometimes I like to have a snack of apple slices with almond butter. If I slice the apple and then go off to answer the phone, when I come back, inevitably, that crisp white pink lady apple has started to look a little bit … brown.

That browning process is the result of something called oxidation. What does the flesh of an apple have to do with the flesh of your body?

Well, when you are exposed to secondhand smoke or polluted air, a similar process happens inside of you. In the case of apple’s cells, no big deal. But when it’s your cells, you want to pay a little bit more attention. Sure, your body is constantly regenerating cells, so while the apple gets brown and rotten, you get new cells to replace the old ones. But sometime in the damaged cells, molecules get ‘dinged’, losing an electron or two and becoming what are called free radicals.

Missing something of themselves, so to speak, they go out to reclaim what is lost, sometimes damaging other cells and initiating a chain of cellular events that can lead to disease … like heart disease, cancer, arthritis, cataracts, and diabetes. Free radicals continue the oxidation at a cellular level, hurting others as they have been hurt, and in essence, aging the body (including your skin).

So what can you do about it?

you can help your body by supplying it with a liberal amount of ANTioxidants in the form of oranges, carrots, green leafy vegetables, whole grains, strawberries, nuts … the very same foods we have been talking about all along.

Because vitamin C, vitamin A, selenium, beta-carotene, and vitamin E are part of the antioxidant army that protects your body from damage. Antioxidants, as the name applies, protect against oxidation.