Antioxreds is a delicious blend of fruit and vegetable powders including
blueberries, goji berries, pomegranate and beetroot. The naturally occuring
red pigments and unique phytonutrients have been further enhanced by
fortification with specific nutrients including lycopene and grape seed extract.

When striving for wellness, it is easy to overlook common foods with
remarkable health benefits and instead desire expensive ‘miracle cures',
especially those condoned by celebrities.  It can be a surprise that some
of the ‘super foods' that we desire may already be sitting in our fridge or
growing in our vegetable garden.  An example of this lies in the healing
potential of common fruits and vegetables.  For example, the humble tomato
has been shown to help prevent prostate cancer - the third most common
cancer to affect males, whilst strawberries and blueberries may help
prevent cardiovascular disease and premature aging.

If you tend to skip meals and opt for a multivitamin pill to supply
essential nutrients, you may ask why regularly consuming fruit and
vegetables is important.  The main answer lies in the naturally occurring
plant chemicals or polyphenols.  Whilst it is possible to manufacture
essential vitamins and minerals in a laboratory to make a multivitamin pill,
many other unique plant chemicals are too complex to recreate.  
Therefore even though taking a multivitamin daily is recommended for good
health, it is also important that you consume foods that supply a range of
other beneficial plant chemicals, especially antioxidant compounds.

Fresh fruit and vegetables are rich sources of antioxidant vitamins, minerals
and polyphenols.  Polyphenols are brightly coloured plant chemicals that have
beneficial health properties. In fact, different fruits and vegetable have
different polyphenols, which have different actions in the body.  There is no
substitute for a healthy diet, but to help you out there are now some
functional food products available that offer a combination of antioxidant
foods together with essential vitamins and minerals.  Taken together with a
healthy diet, this combination will ensure that your daily antioxidant
intake is sufficient.

Antioxidants - Why are they so important?

Antioxidants are molecules that reduce or inhibit damage by free radicals
thereby preventing oxidative stress.  Free radicals are unstable molecules
that are produced naturally in our body every day as part of our normal
metabolism.  They are also created by a number of external factors including
UV light, radiation, infections, medications, heavy metals, pollution and
synthetic chemicals, to name a few. As you can see, although we can minimise
the causes of free radical production, it is impossible to avoid them completely.

Antioxidants inhibit damage by free radicals by converting them into harmless
molecules.  However, when antioxidants are lacking, free radicals attack other
molecules to stabilise themselves, which in turn causes the molecules that are
attacked to become unstable and subsequently attack more molecules. This chain
reaction is called oxidative stress. Therefore it is important to both minimise
exposure to external factors that cause free radical production and also to
increase our antioxidant status.

The Good News......

The Antioxidant ‘super' foods in Antiox Reds

SUPER FRUITS & BERRIES:

Goji berries, Pomegranate, Blueberries, Raspberries, Strawberries, Cranberries,
Blackcurrant & Black Grape

NUTRIENT RICH VEGETABLES:

Carrots, Beetroot & Tomato

PLUS CONCENTRATED NUTRIENTS:

Grapeseed extract, Lycopene & Rosehips

ANTIOXIDANT VITAMINS & MINERALS:

Calcium Ascorbate (Vitamin C), Mixed Tocopherols (Vitamin E), Selenium & Zinc

The bottom line......

Eating an abundance of different brightly coloured fresh fruit and vegetables instead of
highly processed nutrient poor foods could be the most important decision you make
towards long-term wellness.  When you are unsure if you have eaten enough antioxidant
foods to fulfil your daily requirements, it may be beneficial to take a functional food
supplement containing the above nutrients to ensure that you are getting the
antioxidant protection you need.