Antioxidants: Power Ingredients to help reduce aging, improve energy and enhance immune system

In this episode of Food is Fuel, host Traci Knight explores the power of antioxidants and their essential role in reducing aging, boosting energy, and strengthening the immune system. She discusses how lipid oxidation leads to free radicals that damage cells, contributing to disease and premature aging. Traci highlights natural antioxidants found in foods like apples, grains, carrots, tomatoes, pecans, and chocolate, explaining their health benefits and how to incorporate them into meals. She also shares tips on balancing flavors in dishes to maximize both nutrition and taste. Tune in to discover simple yet effective ways to make your diet work for your long-term health!

Transcript

 Hi, and welcome to this week's podcast. Food is fuel. I'm your host, Tracy, and food is fuel and your medicine. Best ingredients for vitality and longevity. In my culinary classes, I talk a lot about antioxidants and using oil correctly. If you listened to my podcast last week, I talked about oil and the importance of using it correctly.

 And what happens if you use it incorrectly. So furthering that lipid oxidation is what creates free radicals in your body. Oxidation does as well, right? So what this means  is it's a chemical reaction that creates free radicals, which are unstable molecules that can damage your cells, that lead to premature aging, diseases. Zapping your energy. So these little tiny troublemakers, which are pretty big, can cause a lot of chaos in your body.  There are things like allium, which is an antioxidant. It's found in garlic. However, you also have things in your body that have you built in, it's a built in defense mechanism or system.

And it keeps everything in balance

We want to remember that antioxidants aren't just found in our foods, but it's also found in other areas, like cosmetics that keep things fresh, right? But we want to discuss and focus on natural preservatives because we also have synthetic preservatives or synthetic antioxidants. And those are your BHT.

which are shortening or instant mashed potatoes, potato flakes. Your BTH found in soup bases, some seasonings, not to mention you have processed meat, processed foods, breakfast cereals, microwave popcorn. Then you have, of course, a part of this is TBHQ. Too much of synthetic stuff may cause some problems in your reproductive, immune, and hormone functions.

So we want to take things like spices and herbs, simple stuff, right? Because that gives a beautiful aroma to our dishes, beautiful flavor. And when we misuse lipids or oils, then we cause this flavor change, which makes it funky, right? And it smells funny. It's rancid. It's not good for ourselves. It's not good for our health.

 And you want to remember that you do not want to use things that won't allow for your body to be a well oiled machine. Alright? So just loading up on a few things, few ingredients, will help you. With your life in all areas, adopting functional foods with high antioxidant potential will improve the effective, affordable management of free radical diseases while avoiding the toxicities and unwanted side effects caused by conventional medication.

Always consult your doctor on everything , and you can even take this information to him of. There's antioxidants, spices, herbs, and foods that I'm going to discuss today. Now, what determines an antioxidant, there are several analytical methods that scientists use to measure the antioxidant efficiency, right?

 Now, what they do is, they see how it  The power behind it and what reduces it. So there's different systems to measure the ability to scavenge oxygen radicals, right? And the ability to see even with color change in the food, like when you blanch a tomato, like what does that do and what does that mean in regards to the powerful antioxidants in tomatoes?

 So that's what they do, right? The methods provide a comprehensive evaluation of the antioxidant activity and efficiency of spices and herbs, helping to identify the potential for food preservation and health benefits.

 Now, let's go over some natural antioxidants from our foods, seeds, food  natural stuff. So we have fruits, veggies, grains, spices, and herbs. that I want to go over, and a little bit of the why. So apples show that  an apple has  1, 500 mg of vitamin C. Talk about keeping the doctor away. Huh? But, the real magic is in the skin.

 So this is one of those things that we want to eat organically, right? We don't want to peel the skin. I see a lot of people peel the skin. I'm like, why are you peeling the skin? Just like in potatoes, it's like, why are you peeling the skin? That's where the nutrients are. It's loaded with phenolics and flavonoids.

Those are two  powerful compounds or agents, antioxidant agents, those are our superheroes that inhibit colon and liver cancer, cell growth, and the lab studies that we have, right? So when you have the skin left on, you get higher doses of the antioxidants. That is amazing. So keep the pill on, right?

Apple dishes, I like to add them. You can add them to    say  kielbasa or, so  let's say for example, you have a processed meat like  packaged meat, like a kielbasa. Add onion. which has your antioxidants because it's sulfur containing. And a garlic, which is your allium, which is an antioxidant.

And apple, give it some sweetness to the dish. And if you, since a kielbasa is    salty, add a yellow onion instead of a red onion. A red onion is peppery, where a yellow onion is more of a sweet note to it. So we can balance that salt out, right? And balance the peppery of the kielbasa.  And the garlic has that nice little,  the power punch flavor to it as well.

 Some folks are like, yeah, I love garlic, I'm gonna load up on it.  Don't  great you love garlic,  eat it raw. But in a dish, you need to make sure it's balanced. So don't go crazy with the garlic or onion. You need to make sure everything is balanced accordingly in the dish. If you want to add more onions to your meals, then put  maybe raw onion in a salad.

Or  a garlic hummus. Have a hummus appetizer with a pita or something of that nature. But don't try to overload the dish just because you like an ingredient a lot. Because that's going to actually Unbalance the dish and you want harmony to the dish. You want it to taste good. You don't want those four notes coming at you.

You want it to blend nicely through. All right. Now, grains. This is our second one. It's phytochemicals. So that's a antioxidant. It lowers the risk of colon cancer, breast cancer, diabetes, even heart disease. It has phytoestrogens, which help balance hormones and reduce the risk of hormone related cancers like prostate and breast cancer.

 So like oatmeal in the morning, break the fast with oatmeal, right? Add  flaxseed meal to that, or wheat bran. You can add at this point  fruit or honey, but don't add both, those are two things. The high glycemic,  so you have oats  I use steel cut oats, gluten free, and I'll add maybe a nut butter to it, and the balance between a low glycemic and a high glycemic will help with balancing the sugars, alright?

You can add nuts to it, which we're going to talk about in a minute, pecans and black walnuts, which are antioxidants as well, so that would be a good thing to add to this, and now you have two antioxidants ingredients. And then to help with the risk, lowering the risk of colon cancer, additions like wheat bran or flaxseed meal are great to add to it.

So at number three, we have carrots and tomatoes. I like to add these because it's the pigment. It's called carotenoids, which is, gives it the pigment. Alright? And it helps with healthy heart. It helps protect yourself against cancers. It has beta carotene, a type of vitamin A that helps with heart disease and vision loss.

 Carrots do help your eyesight. They work on a cellular level, and that is affecting how your cells signal and regulate oxidative stress. They have a connection to beta particles. It's the same concept used in nuclear physics. Beta particles are high energy electrons  and, Protons released during the radioactive decay, while carotenoids aren't radioactive, they do work in a similar way by neutralizing harmful oxidative damage inside your body.

So remember that dish I was talking about? And now carrots are the highest in sugar, so they're very sweet. You do not need to add honey to them.  Like sweet potatoes, alright? I see a lot in the South.  It is sweet potatoes, marshmallows, brown sugar, it is like so many sweets added to this very healthy vegetable that it's like it's rich in vitamin B and then people just put sugar on top of it and process sugars that it just kills those B vitamins that you need for your healthy heart and your Diabetes,  so let's get real here. So we need to really look at what we're doing in the kitchen. You don't need to add sugar to a sweet dish. It's already sweet, right? But if you add a few carrots  think about, I would slice them and balance them between the apple and the carrot. Don't overload it with sweet.

Okay? You could add carrots instead to a broccoli dish. Or you have carrots by itself and roast them. They're very hearty. And get field carrots where you can eat the root part. That's where a lot of the nutrients lie as well.    Grab some carrots as a snack. You can have them raw. Apples are raw.

What I love having in the kitchen is things that I can cook with. Apples, carrots, tomatoes, broccoli, and things that I can eat raw.  Raw and cooked.  Spinach. Spinach also contains a very rich amount of vitamin A. And is a part of the, this  carotenoid group. I have a recipe on my blog, a kale salad and a kale soup.

It, I call it the immunity dishes. And that's what all this  is really enhancing your immune system to fight some of these major little dudes,  so tomatoes, remember I was telling you that we have our tomatoes as part of it, and see the seeds of the tomato  and so both raw tomatoes and processed tomatoes have phenolics like lycopene.

Flavonoids, vitamin C, vitamin E, antioxidants. That's rich.  Hello, five right there. Tomato pulp and seed and the peel have a high concentration of lycopene. So have it in your salad, have it in your dish. I put it in my chicken tikki masala, which is excellent and fun to eat and it's very healthy. I add, when I do chicken tikki masala, I don't add the sugar to it.

Instead, I use a full fat coconut milk, which is already really sweet, not to mention.  I'm using a yellow bell pepper with yellow onion gives it the sweetness to the dish naturally. So you're not adding more sugars to the dish, right? So we want to really focus on keeping that  those natural sugar enhancers without adding processed sugars that are going to squash our nutrients and deplete our natural mitochondrial energy and do cellular damage causing diabetes, heart disease, right?

So tomato skin have those necessary amino acids. People forget that amino acids are also found not only in protein foods, but also in our fruits and vegetables. So you can have it. And when you put vegetables and grains together, you have a full protein. All right? You have your 20s.  And not to mention, tomatoes have our MUFA fat, which is monounsaturated fatty acids.

 Your cold press olive oil. Hello. What? And so put it on your salad. Add a little olive oil to it with the spinach. Awesome. Look at those antioxidants pouring in. Put a little cilantro on it. Cilantro, we're going to talk about in a minute. How that also contains antioxidants.  Super cool. I love food.

I love food and I want you to love food too. And it increases. Tomatoes increase the dish 53 percent in antioxidants. It's  incredible. Now we're going to slide over to a  a Southern favorite, pecans, pecan pie, pecan ice cream, pecan and crusted salmon. We have everything, right?  I feel  like one of those    where you're talking about nuts all the time, like shrimp and boat.

   We all have all different types of dishes made with pecans, but hey, when you have pecan groves all over the place  you do, right? You do find a way. All right. They have, it's high healthy fats, high unhealthy fats, which is going to be your monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids. It's a low unsaturated fat and it's rich in those antioxidants.

It has vitamin E's. Tocopherols and sterols, which protect your cells. And this is really great to have, so if you are trying, like trying to heal your body from oxidative stress slash smoking, and you decided to stop smoking, you need to increase more of the vitamin E, so that you're protecting your cells and healing and preventing scar tissue from forming on the lungs.

Alright, this helps prevent this. And  what this does is that it fights the oxidative stress  caused by smoking, okay?  That's going to help and help prevent lung cancer, right? Pecans, by 96%, it inhibits oxidation in your body. That means it's going to slow down aging, fight disease, and keep your body running smoothly.

So try to like your sweet potato dish. Why don't you try to not add sugar to your pecans and eat them raw or roasted or even put them with your sweet potatoes as a crunchy topping.  Excellent. I thought we had this talk. Chocolate. What? Love it. Such as a surprising ingredient when people go, what I can eat chocolate?

Yes, you could eat chocolate. But what did I say about the last? Ingredients like  sugar  reduce Now this is a beautiful article. I found on a website called Italy  Segreta and for the Italians out there if I mispronounce that I Apologize, it's by Joe It's an eight minute read, it's easy, but it's chock full of interesting Sicilian carob history.

I love that    the Egyptians used it in winemaking, and that was 5, 000 years ago.  The Greeks brought it to Sicily, where it's an agricultural staple today, and just like the pecan grows in the south, you'll find these trees everywhere in Sicily, especially in this particular area that the article talks about, so I really love that.

Encourage you to go check it out. It's very rich in minerals and protein. Even the pods are used for the livestock. The carob with a little water and honey heated helps the digestive issues or the runs. You know what I'm saying? That's in the article. Super cool. Chocolate has some pretty intense antioxidant properties.

It contains flavonoids and phenolate. So remember these are agents that protect. The fat and the chocolate from RAM Ramification becoming granted, right? It also reduces the need for preservatives. It has a huge amount of flavonoids, which are strong antioxidants to lower the LDL, right? Cocoa powder extract is linked to the prevention of LDL oxidation.

The phenols in cocoa reduce the oxidation by 75%. It is Cysteate and beta carotene. Remember the carotenoids, right? Keeping its coloring due to the crude polyphenol produced from the carot pods. Now what I do to, I'm gonna, we're gonna just run into number six, which is strawberries. Because we have Valentine's Day coming up, and who doesn't love chocolate covered strawberries, right?

So with that, we have Chocolate covered strawberries. Strawberries reduce the oxidation of LDL along with cocoa.  It makes the treat a healthy heart. Love yourself. Love your partner. With chocolate covered strawberries. How do you do this? To make cocoa covered strawberries, I melt cocoa, one cup, with a fourth a cup of 70 percent dark chocolate.

It  helps with that binding principle. With one tablespoon of coconut oil, healthy fat, and together, don't use butter, okay? Together, it  the coconut oil will make it smoother. Put it in a double broiler, and then dip the strawberry, and then place it on the parchment paper, and place it into the refrigerator until firm.

You have to watch your humidity, okay? Try not to work with chocolate like this on a rainy day.  It's better if it's cooler inside    there's a lot of different things, and as a person who works with chocolate a lot, I  the bit, when I'm making truffles and chocolate items, I have to have the elements just right.

You might see it, the chocolate sweat, alright, so that's why for that. Now who, with this, wants chocolate covered strawberries and wine? Yes, wine is rich. Red wine, by the way, is rich in polyphenols, which are antioxidants that help protect blood cell  vessels in the heart. Wow, it helps with protecting cells from oxidative damage.

It stabilizes organic radical that is often used in standard reactant to measure antioxidant capacity. So it's high on something called  analytic method. That is a DPPH, so it's a free, it scavengers those free radicals and it zaps them, cool? So this is red grapes are awesome and when you are cooking or using, so when I was saying before like the blanched tomatoes, what is that antioxidant intensity after use like winemaking or cooking with.

 It still has a high antioxidant measurement, all right? Juices even range with high antioxidant activity. So even that process piece, you're still going to get high antioxidant activity. Now black walnuts and English walnuts, I put this in the same because it's walnuts. And people ask me what is better, black walnuts, English walnuts  both.

But. One does this and one does the other. So it's good to  mix them. You can even add walnuts to let's say I use how I make my carrot cake is actually I use sweet potato Which is a carotenoid right with walnuts and dates and not add it add extra sugars Don't add sugar to my cakes. I add pea protein isolate And so I make a protein type of this is what I do for a living as I make desserts healthier.

That's why I'm called Skinny Sal. That's my coined business name and I'm the oxymoron of the South. So with this, there are  black walnuts contain more antioxidants than English walnuts, but English walnuts have more phenolic acids and flavonoids, flavanols, excuse me. So black walnuts contain, higher in this, totally get it, But then there's tannins.

Black walnuts contain tannins, which have antioxidant potentials. And also black walnuts have more vitamin E than English walnuts. English walnuts contain more phenolic and flavanols. Black walnuts contain more phytoestrols. And black walnuts contain more protein than English walnuts. And English walnuts contain more healthy fat.

 You're polyunsaturated, right? So you have that, let's move on over because berries are in this and that's  grouped in my opinion with grapes  in that sense, but they're high in fennel egg and berries are great. Okay. They're not in this list, but I just wanted to like, people are going to ask me, what about berries?

 There's  many fruits and veggies and herbs and spices, but I'm just trying to limit this time because, Hey, we only have so much time to listen to me, right? Curcumin. This is a very high, hot topic right now because of the tumeric.  What about weight loss, like tumeric and weight loss?  Curcumin is the antioxidant that is found in the tumeric.

And it is the natural antioxidant. It is anti mutagenic and anti carcinogenic. Okay  we hear about mutation of cells, right? Causing cancer. mutation of cells causing cancer, so this is an anti mutagenic, pre mutagenic. So the National Cancer Institute is conducting several studies at the moment of seeing how powerful this antioxidant curcumin is found in turmeric.

It is the most powerful regulators of lipid peroxidation, alright? So curcumin helps protect other antioxidants and there's three called the trilogy curcumin one two and three that do this So not only does it have one but it has a trilogy. That's a powerful force if you think about it, right? Ginger is the one of my favorites now  curcumin Indian dishes very rich in that ideal roasted curry cauliflower Which is excellent and I use an avocado oil which can withstand the high temp when I roast Now Thai potstickers, I have a recipe for that and I add ginger to it.

Ginger tea. Ginger is over 2, 000 years old. It's a flowering plant that has been widely used as a spice for forever, right? The, it has polyphenols and the antioxidant is gingerol. Hello, ginger is gingerol. It reduces oxidation of LDL. So I add ginger to my chocolate chip cookies. So I have chocolate and ginger.

Cinnamon. All right. Cinnamon is an antioxidant. I use 11 different antioxidants and spices in my cookies when I bake them plus protein. So they're healthy protein cookies.

You add it with turmeric and you have some really powerful antioxidant aging with those two ingredients right there. Ginger extract helps zap free radicals.

Amazing, right? Protect your cells. Protect your skin, like some plants    some herbs that we use, like sage, they actually in their elements, protect themselves from the UV rays. So think about yourself and protecting yourself from the UV rays. Pretty amazing stuff. All right. Now there are tons that I did not, and we'll just have to  if you like this, download it, then I can see what the analytics are and see like you like this kind of material.

And I will put more information and more ingredients and more suggestions on recipes, et cetera. I do want to give you a little bit of advice today that is part of what I'm doing in our world. So let's just look at some things. I'm going to give you some advice in the kitchen. Okay, we talked about grains, right?

People ask me, how do you cook? So brown rice. Alright, oats, we talked about oats. Grain to water ratio is 1 to 2, and you cook it for about 20 minutes, okay? The other, we have another little tip, cleaning, washing your vegetables.

You always want to wash your vegetables from any commercial sources, alright? Now a cool little seasoning mix. Add some bay leaves, basil, parsley, thyme, marjoram, curry, kelp, paprika, cayenne pepper, mustard, garlic, onion, and sea salt. On my blog, Skinny South, I will talk about and give you a link to a seasoning mix that is great for adding to your pantry.

ingredients that I just mentioned are very high in antioxidants. I hope this has helped you today. Look forward to the next one. Take care.