Antioxidants, Fruits & Vegetables

I've been trying to make sure I take supplements and eat foods that contain antioxidants. I have no idea why I am doing that. I've been sort of pretending I have a reason for taking them, but really, I just know that antioxidants are spoken of in a positive sense and so I figured I should probably have them.

My nutritionist talks about consuming foods that have antioxidants. Blueberries show up in this list. Grapes, cocoa and teas also are on the antioxidant list. I look at that list and think, hmmm...grapes and cocoa = wine and chocolate. I can do that! She didn't mean wine and chocolate.

She meant fruits and vegetables. To be specific, two servings of fruits and three servings of vegetables a day. She wanted me to eat that. You would think that being a vegetarian, that wouldn't be too hard. Think again. I can't just pick any old vegetable and call it a serving. Nope. It has to be a non-starchy vegetable. A serving is half a cup of whatever vegetable that is on the acceptable vegetable list. Oh, and I need to make sure that I eat vegetables that have different colors. Great, vegetable diversity. This is hard.

I have to buy groceries now. I don't usually do that with any regularity. We don't have any kids left at home to complain that there's nothing to eat, so I only go when I absolutely have to. I thought, heck - I'll just have a salad. That works, but it can't be iceberg lettuce. My nutritionist says there are no real nutrients in iceberg lettuce, my salads need to be made of dark green leaves, like arugula and romaine and adding spinach is a good idea as well. Oh. Hmmmm... I guess I'm going to the grocery store.

I discovered that eating healthy requires many trips to the grocery store. It makes me wonder if the grocery chains have contributed to nutritional research. A container of dark leaf lettuce will last through approximately four salads. That means I can't even get through a week without having to go to the grocery store at least twice. It's not like I can stock up either. Salad makings spoil rather quickly and do you know what happens when you try to freeze lettuce?! Don't ask - you don't want to know what it's like after it thaws.

I went at it scientifically. If I eat two salads a day, then that's fourteen salads. A container will make four salads so I will need to go to the store every other day to get salad. Every other day!!?? What if I just eat three and a half containers of salad on Sunday and just get it over with for the week? Okay - so that's not a good idea.

I decided to think about that one later. What if I have a different color vegetable each day and just eat three servings of it at once? I could open a can of carrots and eat the whole can. Poof! Vegetable requirement filled for the day at only 60 calories (yes, a can of carrots is only 20 calories a serving). That didn't go over well either. My plate is supposed to display vegetable diversity.

Why am I supposed to be eating vegetables again? I get all caught up in how to eat the vegetables that I can't remember why I'm supposed to eat them. Oh yes, now I remember. I'm supposed to eat them because they contain antioxidants. I don't know why I need those - but I do. I decided to to some more research.

There is a battle going on my body similar to the one that is going on in my head concerning aging. Antioxidants help prevent cellular damage caused by free radicals. Free radicals? I am now picturing little Stalins and Lenins and possibly a Sean Penn or two, scrambling all through my body being destructive. As we age, we need to consume more antioxidants to combat the increasing damage done by free radicals. New recruits to neutralize the free radicals and protect cellular democracy!

So where did these free radicals come from? We create them! One of their main functions is food digestion. You can imagine the damage those free radicals can do if they start working their digestive energy on our body's own cells! When this happens, free radicals turn into a hostile force and promote disease and speed aging. Large numbers of free radicals can be produced when our bodies are exposed to any number of things like exhaust, cigarette smoke, X-rays, the sun, and pure oxygen (yep - it's not all about pollutants). Antioxidants are our body's protectors against hostile free radicals. So basically, I'm a walking battle field!

Okay - my nutritionist was right and wasn't just thinking up ways to torture me. I still don't want to go to the grocery store every other day. But if I tell myself that the grocery store trips keep me from aging as quickly, I might go a couple of times a day!