Healthy
Perspectives
By Tonya Bramlage
The amount of antioxidants that
you maintain in your body is
directly proportional to how long
you will live. The process of aging is
largely determined by oxidation.
Oxidation is the gradual damage
to our cells produced by oxygen
burning the fuel from our food. The
fuel is glucose, and as it is burned
with oxygen it creates a type
of exhaust fume through
the oxidation process.
Oxygen is the body’s
most vital nutrient,
without which we
would die in a
matter of minutes as
every cell depends
on a regular supply
of it.
While the body
uses oxygen to extract
the energy from food,
we make oxidants which
cause damage to the body,
our skin becomes less fl exible, and
the membranes of our cells become
gradually less functional. The reversal
to this process is to optimize your daily
intake of nature’s own age defenders:
antioxidants. These work to protect
us from the DNA damaging effects of
oxidants.
High level antioxidant foods are
naturally colorful, such as the blue
found in blueberries, the orange in
38 GASPARILLA MAGAZINE • July/August • 2021
carrots, the yellow in turmeric, the red
in tomatoes, and the dark green in
leafy vegetables. Some foods have
higher levels of antioxidants than
others, giving them more power to
disarm damaging oxidants.
The different colors denote slight
variances of antioxidants, which when
in combination provide a rainbow of
protection. Choosing a variety
of colors when deciding
on which foods to eat
each day will provide
the optimum range
of these important
antioxidants. An
objective measure
of how good a food
is at combating the
oxidizing exhaust
fumes of life is to use a
food’s ORAC (Oxygen
Radical Absorbency
Capacity) potential.
People who enjoy a long life
expectancy include large amounts
of antioxidant rich fresh fruits and
vegetables in their diets. Prevention of
cell damage in the body is determined
by the amount of antioxidants that you
consume daily in order to maintain
a steady supply for your body. The
oldest cultures in the world are known
to consume a minimum of 6,000
ORACs in antioxident food per day.