What's A Phytonutrient And Why Do I Keep Hearing About Them?
by Ben Mester
Phytonutrient is a relatively new term being used and talked about a lot in recent days. Phytonutrients are found in plants, but are not the same as regular nutrients in that the body doesn't use them for energy or as building blocks. Instead, phytonutrients are considered non-nutritive plant chemicals. This means that insead of yielding energy and building blocks, their function is protecive, consisting largely in disease fighting and preventing. In plants, they have the role of shielding the plants from diseases and injuries, bug dangers, drought, heat, sunlight, toxins, and contaminants in the air and the soil. Though plant life has a different kind of immune system than the human body, they have an immune system nonetheless, and phytonutrients play a critical role in plant immune systems.
In human beings, they have a similar function. Everyone has heard the term antioxidant. Antioxidants are specific phytonutrients, ones that protect our DNA from free radical damage and other hazards. Antioxidants are strong protective compounds that most every persons in modern society could use more of. So how does a person go about getting more phytonutrients in their diet? Phytonutrients, strangely enough, generally are what give a fruit or vegetable its coloration. Beta-Carotene, for instance, is found in things like carrots and squash, and gives them their orangish, yellowish coloration. Lycopene can be found in tomatoes and watermelon, and gives them their reddish coloration. Other fruits and vegetables have other phytonutrients with various corresponding colors. Even the color white, like in onions, has a powerful corresponding phytonutrient.
What does this mean? Well this discovery has given rise to the concept of eating a rainbow of colors each day. Because different important phytonutrients have been shown to have different corresponding colors, eating a wide range of different fruit and vegetable colors everyday can be one of the simplest ways to get a good spread of phytonutrients into your diet. The Standard American Diet is rife with foods that are largely colorless, unless they have had artificial colors added to them. But starches and carbohydrates have little to no color, and the vast amount of foods we consume are white or light tan. There are very small amounts of phytonutrients in most of the typical foods in the Standard American Diet.
Another way to get lots of phytonutrients in your diet is to be sure you eat the skin of your vegetables and fruit as often as you're able. The skin of an apple, for instance, shields the inner fruit of the apple from the environment around it. Just think about how quickly an apple oxidizes and turns brown once you slice into it. That's because the skin is loaded with antioxidants that will not allow the oxygen around it to oxidize the tender inner fruit. So peeling off the skin of an apple, for example, gets rid of all of the phytonutrient benefits that come with eating an apple. On the other hand, the skin on many fruits and vegetables is not considered edible, but a large variety of fruits and vegetables do come with edible skins. These are usually very loaded and rich in phytonutrients and can be a great way to supply more antioxidants and other beneficial phytonutrients into your diet.
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