"antioxidants" news and stories

While blueberries and walnuts have long been at the top of the list of good-for-you foods, black rice is now being recommended by researchers as a good source of antioxidants.

The research was presented at the 240th national meeting of the American Cancer Society, the Baltimore Sun reported.

Just a spoonful of black rice bran contains more health promoting anthocyanin antioxidants than are found in a spoonful of blueberries, but with less sugar and more fiber and vitamin E antioxidants," said Zhimin Xu, associate professor at the Department of Food Science at Louisiana State University Agricultural Center, the paper reported.

Perhaps you've noticed that the acai berry is suddenly everywhere -- as a juice, lurking in your tea, and hawked alongside your Facebook profile as weight-loss supplement. Who had even heard of this fruit ten years ago? And what is it, anyway?

Turns out the acai berry is a product of the acai palm tree, native to Central and South America and a close relative of the blueberry, cranberry, and other dark reddish/purplish fruits. As with those fruits, the acai berry is rich in anthocyanins and flavonoids -- both strong antioxidants that help your body fight against free radical damage, which is essentially what occurs on a cellular level when oxygen interacts with certain molecules. The theory goes that free radical damage can contribute to everything from minor complaints, like wrinkles, all the way up to major ones, like heart disease and cancer. And in the case of acai berries in particular, there's been a lot of hype around weight loss, resulting in numerous acai supplementation products hitting the market.

Researchers at the University of Buffalo recently found that drinking orange juice with high-fat, high-carb fare can actually reduce some of the damage that meal would do to your body. The antioxidants in a glass of OJ won't mitigate any weight gain (sadly), but they do appear to reduce inflammatory stress, which in turn can lead to a "cardiac event."

Husam Ghanim, a researcher at the University of Buffalo and lead author on the study, had already pinned down in previous research the fact that high-fat, high-carb food causes inflammatory, cardiovascular damage to the body. That, frankly, wasn't much of an attention-getter. But this recent study is more surprising.

Ghanim and the other researchers split their test subjects -- thirty healthy adults between ages 20 and 40 -- into three groups, and then had each group enjoy a fast-food breakfast (think egg-and-sausage breakfast sandwich with hash browns). Ten subjects drank water with their meal, the next ten drank orange juice, and the rest drank a glucose drink. (To keep things on an even playing field, the glucose drink and the orange juice both had the same amount of calories.) Test subjects' blood was sampled directly before the meals and three separate times afterward, and the results were stark: the water and glucose-drink groups showed significantly higher oxidative stress numbers than orange juice group's numbers.

Thanksgiving or not, cranberries are invited to our table anytime, lending tartness to just about any relish, compote, jelly or chutney.

We love the way they form red carpets over New England bogs, the way they plump up and burst when they're cooked and, as the blogger who combined them with orange zest, honey, cinnamon and cardamom rhapsodizes in the caption to this photo, the way they "make the kitchen smell heavenly."

That cranberries are loaded with antioxidants and help fight infections are just two more good reasons to find yet another way to serve them, such as in a tart-and-creamy cranberry-horseradish dip.

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As we've noted, it's iced coffee time, folks. While we can all agree that the best version is that which is freshly brewed, sometimes you've got to make do with what can be grabbed out of the convenience store fridge. Starbucks' Frappuccino is a perennial favorite, and we're fans of their Doubleshot Energy Drink (especially the new Cinnamon Dulce flavor) when caffeine alone isn't quite enough.

Behold, however, a challenge to Starbucks supremacy from Pom Iced Coffee. Far from an unpleasant mix of joe and pomegranate juice (though it does feature a touch of the antioxidant-laced fruit extract), this is one smooth-blended iced coffee drink. The cafe au lait version is delightful, but it is the chocolate that may soon boast the title of best bottled iced coffee, with an addiction-inspiring taste reminiscent of a blend of Yoo-Hoo and chocolate Nestle Quik.

The only problem with this cooling nectar? It's only available at select stores and Whole Foods in the Northeast (though bottles have been spied at 99-cent stores on the west coast). If anything were to make a convenience store crawl or a trip to a pricey specialty grocer worth it, it is Pom Chocolate Iced Coffee. So stock up.

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