MORE ON NUTRIENT-RICH FOODS

   Whenever oxygen reacts with substances, a process known as oxidation takes place.  This is reflected in many substances such as iron rusting, use of gasoline, extracting energy from food and causing butter to turn rancid. Its power extracts energy from food enabling our bodies to repair damage, fight infections, and keep warm. Our brains are especially dependent on oxygen, for without it we could pass out within 15 seconds.  This damage begins within minutes and may lead us to succumbing to the ravages of chronic disease, cancer, stroke, heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and death.  A by-product of our bodies’ normal oxygen-fuelled body sometimes tries to break away for a power trip on its own.  Called free radicals, these unstable molecules can also damage the body.  Their helpers include cigarette smoke, air pollution, X-rays and chemotherapy.  Some free radicals are needed as messengers in regulating immune responses: wound repair, cell growth and many other functions.  Some unstable ones crave turning the “victim” into a new free radical that oxidizes the cell components, and may even exterminate them.  Our bodies need certain minerals from outside sources called enzymes to launch a counter attack. 

   Enzymes are called essential nutrients which turn free radicals back into law abiding cellular citizens.  Vitamins from food are recruited in this battle against free radicals.  Some vitamins dissolve only in fats and vitamin E is one of them.  Foods from plants contain a host of nutrients including enzymes.  It is interesting to note that where I now live in Carrington Retirement Home, residents are invited to a meeting once a month to air any complaints as well as compliments.  The dinner meal here includes a green salad, and choices of roasted meats, mashed or a baked potato and two cooked vegetables.  One resident raised her hand with this complaint, “Why do we have so much spinach, hardly anyone likes it?”  We are served spinach once a week and for myself I would be happy to have it every day as one of the vegetables.  Dr. Stan Kubow, a professor of dietetics researches antioxidants at McGill University in Montreal, explains, “Phytochemicals were thought to act as antioxidants by acting with free radicals, but recently we’ve found out their concentrations in the body are acting too low to do that because they are poorly absorbed into the bloodstream and more likely to act only on a genetic level.”  Tomorrow’s blog will have more from Dr. Kubow regarding how free radicals work their damage.