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Heard a lot about antioxidants, but still not really sure where to find them and what they’ll do for you once you get them in your system?
Well, naturally occurring antioxidants are everywhere - and they’re found in fruit, vegetables, fruit and vegetable juice and cereals.Basically, antioxidants protect the cells of the body from damage by free radicals. Free radicals are like the bad guys in your body - thought to trigger the initial phase of several diseases by damaging cells and occur naturally, but can be increased by things like smoking. Naturally occurring antioxidants destroy free radicals and therefore can reduce the risk of heart disease and some cancers.
Want to know about the different kinds of antioxidants and where you’ll find them? Here’s a few:
Want to know how antioxidants work?
Want to know how antioxidants work? Well, have you ever put lemon juice on an apple or banana to prevent it going brown? This works because lemon juice contains vitamin C, an antioxidant which protects the banana from free radical damage caused by the oxygen in the air.
So what’s the difference between a soft drink and a juice?
Quite a bit really. Our freshly squeezed juices contain nothing but whole fruit, which contains lots of vitamins, which we all need to stay healthy! Soft drinks, on the other hand, have minimal nutritional value.
What about sugar?
Per 100ml, the juices on our menu have less sugar than a can of Cola. And the only sugar contained in our juices is fructose, which naturally occurs from fruit (we call this good sugar).
Do we add any sugar to our juices?
Simply, no. All our freshly squeezed juices contain is whole fruit & vegies (and some ice if you want it cold!). We make all your juices in front of you, so feel free to watch us if you want to be sure!
Berries are one of nature's superfoods. Want to know why? Here are the benefits of just a few of our favourite berries:
Blueberries – Blueberries are a rich source of antioxidants, such as anthocyanins. Research shows that antioxidants have a range of health benefits by protecting body cells from free radical damage. Anthocyanins have been shown in research to have a strong anti-inflammatory effect.
Raspberries – Raspberries, like blueberries, are rich in antioxidants. One of these is Vitamin C, which is also important for immune function and repair of body cells. Also high fibre (6g/100g).
Strawberries – unbelievably low in kilojoules (81kJ/100g*) and sugar but super-sweet, also rich in Vitamin C and potassium.
Source: Diabetes Care, June 2007
Orange juice, despite its high caloric load of sugars, appears to be a healthy food for diabetics due to its mother lode of flavonoids, a study by endocrinologists at the University at Buffalo has shown. The study appeared in the June 2007 issue of Diabetes Care.
Flavonoids suppress destructive oxygen free radicals -- also known as reactive oxygen species, or ROS. An overabundance of free radicals can damage all components of the cell, including proteins, fats and DNA, contributing to the development of many chronic diseases, including heart disease and stroke as well as diabetes.
The resulting study involved 32 healthy participants between the ages of 20 and 40, who were of normal weight, with a body mass index of 20-25 kg/m2. Participants were assigned randomly and evenly into four groups, who would drink the equivalent of 300 calories-worth of glucose, fructose, orange juice or saccharin-sweetened water.
Fasting blood samples were taken before the test and at 1, 2 and 3 hours after a 10-minute period to consume the drinks.
Results showed a significant increase in ROS within 2 hours in samples from the glucose group but not in those from the fructose, orange juice or water group.
“We were intrigued by the fact that there was no increase in ROS or inflammation following orange juice consumption, even though its glucose concentration was the same as in participants in the glucose group,” said Dandona. “This raised the question of what in the juice was responsible for suppressing ROS generation: flavonoids and vitamin C or fructose?”
An additional round of test on the samples showed that neither fructose nor vitamin C suppressed the oxygen free radicals. However the two types of flavonoids in orange juice -- hesperetin and naringenin -- inhibited ROS generation by 52 percent and 77 percent, respectively.
“Our data are relevant to patients with diabetes,” said Dandona, “because stress from ROS and inflammation are increased significantly in this population and may contribute to development of atherosclerosis. Clearly the choice of foods that either don’t increase or actually decrease oxidative and inflammatory stress is important.
“The search for safe non-inflammatory foods and diets must continue,” Dandona stressed, “especially since obesity, being overweight and type 2 diabetes are associated with oxidative stress and inflammation, and more than 60 percent of U.S. population is affected by these conditions.”
Source: Ohio State University, National meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston, August 19 2007
Understanding the molecular structures of compounds that give certain fruits and vegetables their rich colors may help researchers find even more powerful cancer fighters, a new study suggests.
Evidence from laboratory experiments on rats and on human colon cancer cells also suggests that anthocyanins, the compounds that give color to most red, purple and blue fruits and vegetables appreciably slow the growth of colon cancer cells.
The findings also bring scientists a step closer to figuring out what exactly gives fruits and vegetables their cancer-fighting properties.
“These foods contain many compounds, and we're just starting to figure out what they are and which ones provide the best health benefits,” said Monica Giusti, the lead author of the study and an assistant professor of food science at Ohio State University.
Giusti presented the findings, which represent the collaborative efforts of Giusti and her colleagues, on August 19 at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston.
Giusti and her colleagues found that in some cases, slight alterations to the structure of anthocyanin molecules made these compounds more potent anti-cancer agents.
In their studies on human colon cancer cells grown in laboratory dishes, the researchers tested the anti-cancer effects of anthocyanin-rich extracts from a variety of fruits and vegetables. They retrieved these anthocyanins from some relatively exotic fruits and other plants, including grapes, radishes, purple corn, chokeberries, bilberries, purple carrots and elderberries.
The plants were chosen due to their extremely deep colors, and therefore high anthocyanin content. Some of these plants are also used as a source of food coloring.
The researchers determined the amount of extract needed from each plant to cut the growth of human colon cancer cells in half. Altering pigment structures slightly by adding an extra sugar or acid molecule changed the biological activity of these extracts.
The researchers added different extracts to flasks that contained colon cancer cells. They used an analytical technique called high-performance liquid chromatography – mass spectrometry in order to determine the exact chemical structure of each compound. They used biological tests to determine the number of cancer cells left after anthocyanin treatment.
The researchers found that the amount of anthocyanin extract needed to reduce cancer cell growth by 50 percent varied among the plants. Extract derived from purple corn was the most potent, in that it took the least amount of this extract (14 micrograms per milliliter of cell growth solution) to cut cell numbers in half. Chokeberry and bilberry extracts were nearly as potent as purple corn. Radish extract proved the least potent, as it took nine times as much (131 g/ml) of this compound to cut cell growth by 50 percent.
“All fruits and vegetables that are rich in anthocyanins have compounds that can slow down the growth of colon cancer cells, whether in experiments in laboratory dishes or inside the body,” Giusti said.
In additional laboratory studies, she and her colleagues found that anthocyanin pigments from radish and black carrots slowed the growth of cancer cells anywhere from 50 to 80 percent. But pigments from purple corn and chokeberries not only completely stopped the growth of cancer cells, but also killed roughly 20 percent of the cancer cells while having little effect on healthy cells.
In animal studies, rats induced with colon cancer cells were fed a daily diet of anthocyanin extracts either from bilberries and chokeberries, which are most often used as flavorings or to make jams and juices. The dietary addition of the anthocyanin extracts reduced signs of colon tumors by 70 and 60 percent, respectively, when compared to control rats.
Giusti says the results suggest that anthocyanins may protect against certain gastrointestinal cancers.
“Very little anthocyanin is absorbed by the bloodstream,” Giusti said. “But a large proportion travels through the gastrointestinal tract, where those tissues absorb the compound.”
In fact, other researchers at Ohio State have found that black raspberries may help reduce the growth of esophageal and colon cancers tumors.
Still, Giusti stops short of recommending one kind of fruit or vegetable over another. She and her colleagues are continuing to study how the chemical structure of anthocyanins contributes to the potential health benefits of food as well as how changes to these structures may affect the body's ability to use the compounds.
“There are more than 600 different anthocyanins found in nature,” she said. “While we know that the concentration of anthocyanins in the GI tract is ultimately affected by their chemical structures, we're just beginning to scratch the surface of understanding how the body absorbs and uses these different structures.”
She pointed out that her team is also evaluating how these pigments interact with other compounds in foods – such interactions could ultimately affect the health benefits of the food or the anthocyanin itself.
“It is possible to use natural, anthocyanin-based food colorants instead of synthetic dyes,” Giusti said. “Doing so still maintains the wonderful colors of foods while enhancing their health-promoting properties.”
Source: CSIRO Australia, 2007
Twelve native Australian fruits that are exceptional sources of antioxidants have been identified in research published in the journal Innovative Food Science & Emerging Technologies.
The fruits: Kakadu plum, Illawarra plum, Burdekin plum, Davidson’s plum, riberry, red and yellow finger limes, Tasmanian pepper, brush cherry, Cedar Bay cherry, muntries and Molucca raspberry; were compared with blueberries (cultivar Biloxi) – a fruit renowned for its high antioxidant properties.
“Finding unique food ingredients and flavours with health-promoting properties is a key market requirement these days,” says research team leader, Food Science Australia’s Izabela Konczak. “And, by encouraging growers to cultivate native fruits, we are also contributing to the growing need to ensure agriculture becomes more sustainable.”
Co-author Dr Michael Netzel – a post-doctoral researcher at Food Science Australia supported by Germany’s Alexander von Humboldt Foundation – says the native fruits were shown to be rich sources of antioxidants, with stronger radical scavenging activities than blueberries.
“Compared to blueberries’ TEAC value of 39.45 trolox equivalents per gram, Kakadu plum and Burdekin plum had TEAC values of 204.8 and 192.0 trolox equivalents per gram,” Dr Netzel says.
“Using native Australian fruits as a source of phytochemicals for use in foods could offer enormous opportunities for the food and functional food industries.
“Studies to identify additional antioxidant compounds as well as clinical trials for testing the fruits’ bioactivity in vivo, are in progress.” he says.
While Australian native fruits have been eaten by indigenous people for thousands of years, this is the first scientific study of the fruits as a source of antioxidants and confirms preliminary results published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry in 2006.
This research supports CSIRO efforts to realise the potential of Australia’s fledgling native food industry which is currently estimated to be worth $14 million annually.
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