More Information About Free Radicals and Antioxidants

I wanted to find a scientific overview of antioxidants, free radicals, and the ORAC score, and how they are all connected. I started browsing YouTube and this is what I found! Click here to view it.

Acai has a GREAT ORAC score!

I just found this chart comparing different fruits' and vegetables' ORAC scores. It looks like Acai hit the top of the list! 

What is a Good ORAC Score?

Now that I know the importance of the ORAC score and what it means, I want to know what is considered a "good" ORAC score and how much of it I should get each day. I looked into it and found that the USDA recommends an intake of about 5,000 ORAC units per day to receive the optimum health benefits associated with antioxidants. So, foods with 500 units or more of ORAC are considered high ORAC score substances. However, the average person is only ingesting about 20%-25% of this recommended amount in his or her daily diet! Eating 8 to 10 servings of brightly colored fruits or vegetables will usually fulfill our recommended level of ORAC, but it seems that most people have trouble eating this much healthy food! In that case, fruit juices or supplements containing high amounts of vitamins and minerals containing antioxidants are a great help. I found this great immune booster with an ORAC score of 1150! I would MUCH rather drink 2 ounces of that than 10 servings of nasty vegetables.

More About Antioxidants

Last time I learned that the ORAC score measures a substance's antioxidant levels, but I didn't really know what was so great about antioxidants. Well, I did some research, and this is what I found. An antioxidant is a substance, such as vitamin E, vitamin C, or beta carotene, that is thought to protect body cells from the damaging effects of oxidation.  These foods specifically are very high in antioxidants: green tea, goji berries, and acai berries. Antioxidants fight free radicals which damage cells. This cell damage can cause cancer and arthritis, and it is detrimental to your immune system health! The best way to be sure you're getting enough antioxidants in your diet is to look at the color of foods you're eating. Remember: COLOR IS KEY! Does your diet consist of brown burgers, fried chicken, and gravy and white french fries, tortillas, butter, and potato chips? If it does, your radicals are free as a bird 'cause you are NOT getting enough antioxidants! Look for dark green vegetables, bright blue berries, red tomatoes, and green peppers. Bright colored foods like these have very high ORAC scores.

So What the Heck is ORAC?

Ok this is what I found out about ORAC so far. The letters O, R, A, and C stand for Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity. (...In English please?) Basically, ORAC is a way of measuring how many antioxidants are in a substance (I'll have to look into what antioxidants are exactly). ORAC is measured in units, and the higher the value, the greater the antioxidant power. Foods that have higher ORAC scores are more capable of helping us fight infectious diseases than foods with low ORAC scores. Let's break each word down to fully understand what it means. Oxygen is referring to the oxidation process.  An easy way to understand the oxidation process is to imagine rust attacking metal. When the rust starts to eat away at the metal, the metal begins to weaken and decay until it can no longer work. This is similar to what happens in your body when free radicals attack it. Organs, cells and other parts of the body can be weakened by oxidation, which ultimately leads to diseases such as cancer, skin disease, and heart diseases.  Radical is referring to the free radicals mentioned earlier that CAUSE the oxidation process. Absorbance means get rid of or kill, and Capacity means how well the food is able to do it. Put together, the ORAC score measures a substance's ability to stop the oxidation process by fighting free radicals.

My New ORAC Blog!

Lately I've hearing more and more about "The ORAC Score". I've never really known what it was, where it can be found, or why it is important. I decided to do some research and find out what the ORAC score is all about. I'll keep you posted on what I find so we can learn about this together!