Which fruits and vegetables are healthiest & have the most antioxidants?

How do you find out the antioxidant value of almost any particular fruit or vegetable? You'd look at the ORAC index. What's the latest upcoming health and sustainability event in Sacramento? It's the "Healthy Neighborhoods = A Sustainable City" event on May 21st, 2010.

If you're looking for an upcoming activity to attend in Sacramento regarding health and sustainability, check out the City of Sacramento's Neighborhood Services Department's Neighborhood Summit 2010 on healthy, sustainable neighborhoods. It is scheduled for Friday, May 21, 2010 from 8:30 to 4:00 pm at the Sacramento Convention Center, downtown at 13th and J Streets. It will be held in the Grand Ballroom.

This free event is open to all residents. It includes interactive workshop sessions, dynamic guest speakers, health and sustainability resource pods, complementary continental breakfast, and lunch is available at the event. Register online at City of Sacramento.

How to Find Out the Antioxidant Value of Fruits and Vegetables

The standard index of finding out how much antioxidant value of any type of plant food (actually the organic compounds in the fruit or vegetable) is called the ORAC. The initials stand for the oxygen radical absorbance capacity.

The USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University developed the ORAC test. It's reliable if you are measuring the ability of antioxidants to absorb free radicals.  The test measures both the degree and speed with which a certain food inhibits those two measurements into a single value. That produces an accurate assessment of different types of antioxidants that have various strengths.

When you look at the ORAC value of any food, what to remember is that the ORAC value of that afood is proportional to its polyphenol content. So fruits or vegetables with a higher ORAC value also have  richer color. And the higher the ORAC value and richer or deeper the color, the result for that fruit or vegetable is its ability to suppress free radicals better than fruits or vegetables lighter in color.

If you look at the recommendations from the US Dept. of Agriculture, the suggestions are to eat foods equivalent to 3,000 to 5,000 ORAC units daily. But is this number fine, or is it too low? As you can see, fruits, particularly some types of berries are much higher in ORAC value than vegetables, but fruits have more sugars.

What Are the Four Superfoods of Anti-Aging & Heart HeathHeath?

They are COQ10, d-Ribose, magnesium, and L-Carnitine, according to the 2009 article, published by Total Health magazine, "The Awesome Foursome."

What Foods Are Highest in ORAC Value? (According to Life Extension Magazine, June 2010 issue, page 38.)

Food                    ORAC Value

Acai berries          18,400

Pomegranates      10,500

Blackberries           5,100

Bilberry                 4,200

Blueberries            3,200

Plums                   2,800

Raspberries           2,700

Strawberries          2,600

Oranges               2,400

Elderberry             2,200

Cherries               2,100

Black Currant        1,160

Red Grapes          1,100

Broccoli flowers       900

Kiwi fruit                900

Beets                     840

Red bell pepper         710

Grapefruit, pink         483

Onion                      450

Corn                        400

Eggplant                  390