By Carla Oates
When it comes to maintaining optimal health, beauty and wellbeing, we all know how important it is to eat a healthy, diverse and well-balanced diet.
While this might look a little different to everyone depending on their dietary preferences, there is one factor that is arguably the most important: antioxidants. Broadly speaking, although we all know that antioxidants are good for our health—as well as playing a critical role in maintaining glowing skin—you may not be aware just how integral these complex compounds are to our wellbeing. Or exactly how these clever compounds operate.
Here, we delve into the beauty of antioxidants, how they work and importantly, how you can increase your antioxidant intake at home and experience the benefits for yourself.
So, What Do Antioxidants Do?
In simple terms, antioxidants are compounds that are both naturally produced by our bodies and also found in our food. While they have a number of functions—their main role is to fight free radicals.
Like antioxidants, free radicals are naturally produced by the body during normal metabolic processes—but are also created by lifestyle and environmental factors such as pollution, UV rays, a poor diet, cigarette smoke, excess alcohol or sugar consumption and exposure to toxins and chemicals. And, when free radicals begin to outnumber antioxidants they contribute to oxidative stress—a process that damages your cells and DNA and contributes to a number of health issues including chronic diseases like cancer, cholesterol issues, Alzheimer's disease and cardiovascular disease. Perhaps worse still, oxidative stress can also accelerate the ageing process of the skin and body.
How to Increase Your Antioxidants
While antioxidants work tirelessly to ‘mop up’ free radicals in our body and help to combat oxidative stress, we simply don’t consume enough of them to scavenge these destructive compounds and prevent further damage from occurring. This is why it’s essential to up our antioxidant intake at every opportunity. Here’s how:
Eat the rainbow. This is certainly not new advice, but it must be emphasised again here as put simply, the more colourful the fruit or vegetable you consume, the greater levels of vitamins and minerals it contains and the larger its nutritional value. This is because more depth of colour equates to greater levels of antioxidants (such as vitamin A, vitamin C and vitamin E) as well as polyphenols—plant compounds that boast high levels of antioxidants and are also shown to support gut health but modulating microbial balance—as well as exhibiting prebiotic properties which encourage the proliferation of even more good bacteria in the gut. Polyphenols have also been widely studied for their abilities to scavenge free radicals and help combat oxidative stress. At The Beauty Chef, we always advocate for filling your plate with as many varieties of fruits and vegetables as possible—but some of the best antioxidant-rich foods include dark leafy greens (which are rich in both lutein and zeaxanthin), bell peppers, red cabbage, sweet potato ( a good source of beta-carotene), tomatoes (rich in lycopene), blueberries and raspberries (which contain high levels of anthocyanins), artichokes, beets, watermelon, mangoes, beans and legumes.
Spice things up. Fresh fruits and vegetables aren’t the only foods that boast potent antioxidant benefits—so too do a number of herbs and spices including cinnamon, clove, peppermint, oregano, thyme, rosemary, sage, allspice and saffron. Not only does adding herbs and spices to your food add an abundance of flavour, but many spices are also loaded with other benefits thanks to their anti-inflammatory properties. Sprinkling a little cinnamon on your morning bowl of oats can therefore not only provide you with your daily dose of antioxidants but also help to balance your blood sugar, support brain health and even help to protect you from cancer. As a side note, while not technically classified as herbs or spices—green tea (which is loaded with catechins), dark chocolate and red wine (which contains heart-healthy resveratrol) are also good sources of antioxidants so indulging in these every now and then can also boast health benefits!
Add an antioxidant supplement to your regime. While dietary intake of antioxidants is important—another simple way to increase your intake of antioxidants is to add an antioxidant-rich supplement to your routine. At The Beauty Chef, our wholefood-based formulas are naturally rich in antioxidants—helping to promote improved health, wellbeing and more glowing skin from within. We even have a specific ANTIOXIDANT Inner Beauty Boost which is designed to nourish, brighten and protect your skin from the inside out—whilst also nurturing your gut health. Containing antioxidants from bio-fermented papaya, pomegranate fruit extract, green tea and elderberry—this multi-tasking formula is also a good source of vitamin C, which helps to protect against free radical damage, support collagen production (for more plump, resilient skin) and bolster the immune system.
