You can find many articles here on NT Pages and elsewhere about the benefits of certain "superfoods." As they are discovered, each of these superfoods is put under the microscope in order to reveal the "secret" ingredient that makes them so beneficial for health. In many, if not most cases, that secret ingredient turns out to be a group of compounds known as polyphenols.
What are Polyphenols?
Actually, a microscope is not needed to find polyphenols, because they are the compounds that give berries their beautiful colours. It's as if nature has "colour coded" berries and other fruits and vegetables to help us choose which ones are best for us. For those of us who are colour blind or not very observant, nature has also given us another way to recognise polyphenols. Polyphenols give food a bit of a "bite" or makes your mouth pucker when you eat it.
Chemically, polyphenols are a little harder to describe. The "poly" in polyphenols means "many." A phenol is a six-sided molecule. There are over 4000 polyphenol compounds in plants. Fortunately, you needn't memorise all of their names in order to enjoy the benefits of polyphenols. All you need to know is that the biologically distinguishing feature of them is that they are powerful antioxidants that help remove damaging free radicals from the body and have an anti-inflammatory effect.
What Foods Contain Polyphenols?
Many types of berries have taken centre stage as being rich in polyphenols. Red and purple berries, such as black grapes, strawberries, acai berries and blueberries are all high in polyphenols. Recently, a common Chilean berry, the Maqui berry, has been in the news because of its exceedingly high levels of certain types of polyphenols.
While berries have been receiving the most attention, many other foods and herbs contain polyphenols:
- Spices that are high in polyphenols include ginger, cumin, cinnamon and cloves, amongst others.
- Herbs that contain polyphenols include basil, rosemary, thyme, peppermint, parsley and others.
- Almonds and flaxseed top the list of seeds and nuts containing polyphenols, but some others include celery seeds, pecans, walnuts and hazelnuts.
- Olives and extra virgin olive oil are rich sources of polyphenols.
- Spinach, broccoli, red onions and curly endive are four vegetables noted for their high polyphenols content.
- Beverages that contain polyphenols include green tea, black tea, cocoa and red wine.
Health Benefits of Polyphenols
The antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of polyphenols provide a variety of health benefits:
- Arthritis is an inflammatory disease that can be helped by the anti-inflammatory properties of polyphenols.
- Increasing numbers of studies show that polyphenols can help prevent many types of cancer.
- Polyphenols are good for general cardiovascular health.
- Recent studies have shown that the polyphenols found in berries may help keep the brain healthy.
That's a lot of very big claims, but they are backed up by scientific studies. In fact, as science takes a closer look at natural foods, more is being discovered about their health benefits all the time. Not only are natural, unprocessed foods healthy foods, they seem to be our best medicine as well.
Originally published on Jul 16, 2013
