Boost Your Health With Pigments & Antioxidants by Joan Kent, PhD

Boost Your Health With Pigments and Antioxidants
By Joan Kent

Plenty of things about nutrition are important but, to me, kinda boring. This is one of those things. But the topic is health-related, so it’s worth exploring.

Many foods are known to be powerful disease fighters, and this post will cover several of them. Those who plan to object that I’ve left out a bunch will be right. This is not meant to be the definitive, exhaustive list of such foods.

What Do Pigments Do?

As you may know, colorful pigments in foods often indicate the presence of phytonutrients that can fight cancer, heart disease, and other diseases associated with oxidative damage.

Oxidative damage is caused by free radicals, molecules that have lost an electron. Free radicals can scavenge electrons from healthy molecules and then lead to the development of diseases, including cancer.

Free radicals occur during normal metabolic functions but can also be created by toxins, processed foods or pollution. Potential sources of free radical production are everywhere. Antioxidants in foods help guard us against the damage they cause.

Red/Blue Foods

Red/blue foods contain anthocyanins. Examples are cherries, blueberries, plums and strawberries. In addition to anti-inflammatory benefits, red/blue foods can protect against memory loss and declining motor skills.

Yellow/Orange Foods

Yellow/orange foods contain carotenoids, which may fight lung cancer. Examples of these foods are sweet potatoes, pumpkin, carrots, winter squash, cantaloupe, and broccoli. The chlorophyll in broccoli masks the yellow/orange pigment.

Orange Foods

Orange foods, such as mangoes, oranges and papayas, contain cryptoxanthin, which is said to reduce cervical cancer risk.

Red Foods

Lycopene in red foods is well known for its ability to fight prostate cancer and heart disease. Because cooked tomatoes contain lycopene, they sparked, as you may recall, an odd controversy on whether or not pizza is a health food. No comment needed.

Eye-Catching Yellow

Yellow pigments – lutein and xeaxanthin – can protect the eye from blue-spectrum light and guard against macular degeneration. Corn and spinach are foods that contain them. Again, the chlorophyll in spinach masks the yellow pigment.

Pretty In Pink

Astaxanthin is an important antioxidant found in pink foods – wild salmon, shrimp, lobster and crab.

Don’t Forget White

An often-overlooked produce color is white. White produce is said to protect against stroke. White produce includes cauliflower, parsnips, Daikon radish, cucumbers, apples, pears, and bananas. Apples and pears are also anti-inflammatory and may help reduce blood pressure.

Beyond the Rainbow

Looking beyond colors, some high-ranking antioxidant foods are dried beans, blueberries, cranberries (not dried – those are sweetened), berries, artichokes, prunes, apples, pecans, cherries, black plums, and Russet potatoes.

Cancer-fighting foods include bitter almonds (10 per day), apples (including the seeds), apricot seeds/kernels, blueberries, cherries, Brazil nuts, chickpeas, lentils, red beans, oranges, green leafy vegetables, dark green vegetables, tomatoes, wheat grass juice, ginger, and cruciferous vegetables.

Those much-touted and healthful cruciferous vegetables include broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, spinach, arugula, bok choy, collard greens, Daikon radish and other varieties, horseradish, kale, kohlrabi, mustard greens, rutabaga, turnips, and watercress.

As you can see, several foods show up on more than one of the above lists. Those are nutrition powerhouses.

How Much of Each?

Despite the inclusion of various fruits on these lists, my general recommendations would be 6 to 13 servings of vegetables per day (a serving is ½ cup), plus 1 to 2 servings of fruit per day (a serving is ½ cup or 1 medium-size fruit).

Choose your fruits and vegetables from the lists above, and above all, stay away from the 5-a-day approach. That can too easily turn into 5 servings of fruit with no vegetables.

Don’t forget to include some nuts and beans. And, of course, avoid junky, processed foods – like sugar and white flour – to limit free radical formation in the first place.

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