What's A Phytonutrient And Why Should I Eat Them?
By Ben
Mester
Pytonutrient is a relatively new word being
used and talked about a lot in recent days. Phytonutrients are located in
plants, but are not the same as regular nutrients in that the body doesn't use
them for energy or as building blocks. Rather, phytonutrients are what's called
non-nutritive plant chemicals. Instead of yielding energy and building blocks,
their role is protecive, consisting largely in disease fighting and preventing.
In plants, they have the role of protecting the plants from diseases and injuries,
bug dangers, drought, heat, sunlight, toxins, and contaminants in the air and
the soil. Though plants have a different kind of immune system than humans,
they have an immune system nonetheless, and phytonutrients play a crucial role
in plant immune systems.
In human beings, they play a similar function.
Most people have heard the word antioxidant. Antioxidants are specific
phytonutrients, ones which help shield the DNA from free radical damage and
other hazards. Antioxidants are powerful protective phytonutrients that almost
every persons in modern society could stand to have more of in their diet. 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
color. Beta-Carotene, for instance, is found in things like squash and carrots,
and gives them their orangish, yellowish color. Lycopene can be found in
tomatoes and watermelon, and gives them their reddish color. Other fruits and
vegetables have other phytonutrients each having different corresponding
colors. Even white, like in onions, has a powerful corresponding phytonutrient.
What does this mean? Well this has given rise
to the concept of eating a rainbow of colors everyday. Because different
important phytonutrients have been demonstrated to have various corresponding
colors, eating a broad range of different fruit and vegetable colors everyday
can be one of the easiest methods to get a good spread of phytonutrients in
your diet. The Standard American Diet is rife with foods that are largely
colorless, unless they have had artificial colors added in. But simple
carbohydrates like starches have little to no color, and the vast amount of
foods we eat are white or yellowish. There are very small amounts of
phytonutrients in most of the common foods in the Standard American Diet.
Another way to get lots of phytonutrients into
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, protects the inner flesh of
the apple from the harsh environment around it. Just think how fast an apple
oxidizes and begins to turn brown once you slice it open. That's because the
skin is loaded with antioxidants that don't allow the oxygen around it to oxidize
the tender inner meat. So peeling off the skin of an apple, for instance, gets
rid of all of the phytonutrient compounds that you'd otherwise get. On the
other hand, the skin on most fruits and vegetables is not considered edible,
but a large variety of fruits and vegetables do have edible skins. These are
generally very loaded and rich in phytonutrients and are a great way to get
more antioxidants and other beneficial phytonutrients into your diet.
It can be a great idea to eat a rainbow of colors in your diet
everyday. This can not only help you get lots of phytonutrients into your diet,
but can help to maintain your acid alkaline balance also.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Ben_Mester/42875
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