What is an antioxidant?

Everyone nowadays is talking about antioxidant this or antioxidant that. Buy our juice or take our pills or eat our cereal because it has more of this amazing compound! The marketing is endless.

In truth, antioxidants are really important for maintaining your health and aging well. They are, however, out of all nutritional things marketed more than any other because of this connection. After all, you can't say, "Eat protein - it's the fountain of youth!"

The magic of the antioxidant is relatively simple to understand, and much cheaper to obtain on your own than by buying into all of these fads. Every day we acquire damage from our environment through pollution, cigarrette smoke, toxins, even breathing. We need something to counteract this damage, and that's where the antioxidant comes in.

As a compound, it neutralizes things called free radicals that bounce around and cause a rucus in your body. But there are about 20 different kinds of free radicals, so you need to diversify your diet to get the proper antioxidant help. The good news is that this is relatively easy. Fruits and veggies are the number one source - so eat about 6-8 (or more if you can) servings a day, preferably dark greens like Kale and onward to multi colored ones like yellow and red peppers, apples, tomatoes, etc.