Rating the Antioxidants

All fruits and vegetables, whole grain, legumes, tea, chocolate and wine – in short, just about any real food – have antioxidants. What makes one super and one not? It’s the amount of antioxidants.

To measure a food’s antioxidant content, researchers use the ORAC test, which stands for Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity. This is a measure of the total antioxidant content in a given food and thus how many free radicals a specific food can absorb and destroy. The more oxygen radicals a food absorbs, the higher its ORAC score. The higher its ORAC score, the better it is at helping our bodies prevent memory loss and cope with stress.

Nutrition experts estimate each one of us needs a minimum of 3,000 ORAC points a day to even begin to protect the mind, mood and body, though most Americans average less than half that amount. A daily ORAC intake of 10,000 or more is even better. In fact, no one has yet found an upper limit. You can’t store antioxidants, so you must replenish ORAC points every day. That means you need these and lots of other real foods in just about every meal you eat.