Antioxidants!
This morning, as the kid's and I sat enjoying a bowl of dark grapes, I mentioned off-handedly that grapes contain antioxidants, which help keep your body from aging... this sparked the kids' interest,
"What! You mean we can stay young forever?"
"Well, you can definitely slow down the aging process by eating antioxidant-rich foods! They kill free-radicals, which are molecules that harm your cells, causing them to age prematurely."
The word "free-radical" sounded exciting to my 10 year old, son, so we looked the word up to get more info. We learned that free-radicals are molecules which are missing electrons, so they try to steal electrons from healthy cells in the body. When they steal these, then those cells are now missing electrons, and become free-radicals, too, and the whole process snowballs, wreaking havoc on healthy tissue! The good news is, that antioxidants stop this process! (http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-free-radicals.htm)
The obvious next question is, how can I get more of these antioxidants! So, we researched which foods are highest in antioxidants, which include fruits(especially berries), vegetables(especially broccoli and other cruciferous veggies, and greens), dark chocolate, green tea, among others.
My daughter decided to make us all a berry smoothie, which she dubbed "Dr. Rachel's Healthy Turbo Elixer"!
Here's a link to some of the pages we enjoyed:antioxidant-rich top twenty!
about antioxidants!
"What! You mean we can stay young forever?"
"Well, you can definitely slow down the aging process by eating antioxidant-rich foods! They kill free-radicals, which are molecules that harm your cells, causing them to age prematurely."
The word "free-radical" sounded exciting to my 10 year old, son, so we looked the word up to get more info. We learned that free-radicals are molecules which are missing electrons, so they try to steal electrons from healthy cells in the body. When they steal these, then those cells are now missing electrons, and become free-radicals, too, and the whole process snowballs, wreaking havoc on healthy tissue! The good news is, that antioxidants stop this process! (http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-free-radicals.htm)
The obvious next question is, how can I get more of these antioxidants! So, we researched which foods are highest in antioxidants, which include fruits(especially berries), vegetables(especially broccoli and other cruciferous veggies, and greens), dark chocolate, green tea, among others.
My daughter decided to make us all a berry smoothie, which she dubbed "Dr. Rachel's Healthy Turbo Elixer"!
Here's a link to some of the pages we enjoyed:antioxidant-rich top twenty!
about antioxidants!
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