Antioxidant Foods

Serving size is important, particularly because spice is the food category highest in antioxidants, and, of course, we eat a lot less spice than we do fruit and vegetables. Still, one spice ranks in the top 10 foods in antioxidants per serving size. The top ten per serving size are: blackberries, walnuts, strawberries, artichokes, cranberries, coffee, raspberries, pecans, blueberries, and ground cloves.

I love to spice up my food and have written to recommend that you “Spice Up Your Life”. But right now I don’t have a single clove at home. You can be sure that they are now on my shopping list. I will certainly add ground cloves the next time I make curry or a stewed fruit, as my old copy of The Joy of Cooking recommends.

The study makes a special point of highlighting the antioxidant benefits of walnuts. It concludes that the combination of lots of antioxidants and its great polyunsaturated fatty acid content may be what makes walnuts so healthy for us.

The authors conclude that their “preliminary studies” suggest a beneficial health effect of consuming plants rich in antioxidants. Still, they say, “much more research is needed” and that “the antioxidant food table can…not be used for dietary recommendations at the present stage.”

But it’s my life now. I can’t wait for researchers to come to final conclusions about what foods – if any – are good for us to eat.

So, I’m taking the results of this study quite seriously. Besides, many of the foods ranked best in this study are those that I eat the most.