Antioxidants in the body can help to neutralize free radicals and thereby minimizing the damage they cause which is profoundly important for cellular homeostasis. I would like to also note that there have been many scientific papers published discussing the direct relationship between antioxidants in the body and how important they are to the human immune system. Every living tissue in the human body is rusting with age, which simply means the cells are being oxidized. Therefore, I have become interested (as I age) in a way to help slow up this so called aging process by helping my body to achieve the necessary antioxidants.
According to the research conducted by the USDA, eating foods that are rated high in antioxidants has shown to increase the antioxidant levels that are in the human blood by as much as twenty-five percent. Is anyone surprised by this? Putting fruits and vegetables that are high in antioxidants in the body will probably help you live longer. Perhaps a lot longer. Some fruits that are believed to be the highest in antioxidants are prunes, raisins, blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, and raspberries. The vegetables are kale, spinach, brussels sprouts, alfalfa sprouts, broccoli, and beets. And the above is in the order of the highest antioxidant levels listed first, and by that I mean "prunes and kale" are believed to be the highest in antioxidants.
Can we slow up the normal process of aging? Can most cases of even loose teeth be prevented if we would provide the gums with the necessary nutrients? When eating we should not only be concerned with antioxidants in the body, but what plays a vital role in helping to regulate the chemical reactions that protect cells and convert food into energy and living tissue. It has taken me many years of careful thought to come up with the idea that the governments idea of 3 to 5 daily servings of vegetables may be okay. And that 2 to 4 of fruit also sounds good if we can do it. But I am not buying 6 to 11 of bread, rice, pasta and grains, as well as 2 to 3 of meat, eggs, poultry and dried beans. This is just way too much food for anyone in any given day.
It seems clear we have a whole lot of folks on this planet that do not distinguish between the need for essential nutrients and a need to eat. The need or desire for food is ingested by many of us regardless of whether we have adequately fed our body. There is just way too many of us that have the habit of eating automatically with food that has very little or in many cases almost zero nutrients. We seem to enjoy eating calories for the flavors and aromas and way too often not for the necessary nutritional requirements of our body. Sure it would be great to eat an apple instead of the apple pie. However, the idea is not to just cut out junk food, but to eat a little less of what we were eating before.
Everything I have ever read agrees with what a wise man once told me in 1975, which was that a healthy portion of meat, poultry, or fish should be about the size of the palm of our hand. For some people it might be fun to focus on creating new and delicious meals. Our dietary choices should reflect the kind of foods we would want to eat and not foods that we would not enjoy eating. And remember the body needs a little time to switch from its ability to process high levels of animal protein, fat, and sugar so that it can adjust itself to having the ability to process essential nutrients.
Many people who start to eat healthier will find foods seem tastier in many ways because the taste buds adjust. A medical doctor told me he went back to try to eat the fast food french fries that he once enjoyed so much only to learn they tasted like they had been soaked in Vaseline. Insulin is a hormone secreted by the pancreas that allows our cells to use glucose as our most important fuel. Our cells become less responsive to just about everything including insulin as we age. This can lead to higher levels of glucose for those who are getting up in years than what is necessary for the human body.
Many physicians are now recommending we select our food with the idea of avoiding the high "glucose spike" that taxes our pancreas. This is because the high glucose spike over time can often make our cells less receptive to insulin, thereby causing the pancreas to be stressed even more because more insulin would then be needed. Glucose is a sugar that the body will use as fuel mostly because it contains a lot of energy. Glucose is always present in the bloodstream, which means it's always ready to be received by our cells to be distributed throughout the body. It's very possible that to much glucose circulating around the cells can cause damage as we age and that can cause all kinds of problems to help us age even faster.
Let's enjoy a better, healthier, fuller, and much longer life as we feed our body what it should have. And always keep in mind regular exercise will burn calories as it also builds lean muscle mass, which will help raise our resting metabolic rate. This happens because the metabolism utilizes energy from our food. Our resting metabolic rate will be the amount of energy that is needed to maintain our basic body functions. Think of it as the number of calories we need while we are doing nothing. To build lean muscle will require more energy and therefore raise our metabolic rate because we will be burning more calories than what the body would burn while it's at rest.
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