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December 1, 2016
An antioxidant rich diet keeps your eyes healthy
What are antioxidants and free radicals and why should you care?
As mentioned in our article on anti-inflammatory foods, antioxidants protect you from the damaging effects of free radicals. Oxidation is a natural process that occurs during normal cellular function as oxygen is needed to produce energy by the cells in our eyes and bodies. Free radical are formed during this normal metabolic process and from external sources like x-rays, cigarette smoking, air pollutants and sunlight.
Free radicals attract electrons and can damage your cells and DNA. To help with this battle, your cells create antioxidant enzymes to diffuse free radicals. In addition, you acquire antioxidants from food. A balance between free radicals and antioxidants is necessary for proper physiological function and to reduce oxidative stress.
Oxidative stress occurs when your body is not able to maintain the normal reduction-oxidation reactions that occur in your cells billions of times every second. At times, for a variety of reasons, there is an excess of free radicals that damage your cell components and even your DNA.
Your eyes are very metabolically active. In fact, the retina has the highest metabolic rate of any tissue in the body! Thus, your eyes are highly vulnerable to oxidative injury.
Oxidative stress is thought to play a role in age-related macular degeneration, age-related cataract formation, glaucoma and other diseases. Including antioxidant rich foods in your diet everyday will help to reduce the risk or slow the progression of many chronic eye diseases associated with aging.
Antioxidant Foods and ORAC Units
Top 20 ORAC Foods (modernsurvivalblog.com)
Some of the nutrients in colorful foods like berries, peppers, kale and beets are great sources of antioxidants. These phytochemical compounds act as antioxidants by binding with those damaging free radicals, making them stable and thus terminating their free radical toxicity.
Some of the antioxidants which help to support the eye are vitamin C, vitamin E, the carotenoids lutein and zeaxanthin; selenium and phytonutrients. One method of determining the antioxidant capacity of a particular food is expressed in ORAC units (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity). Spices such as cloves, cinnamon and turmeric have a very high ORAC value along with Natural cocoa, coffee and green tea. Other foods high in antioxidants include nuts, berries, beans, dried fruit and vegetables.
The way you prepare food influences the quantity of antioxidants
Food preparation influences the amount of antioxidants present in a particular food. Since many antioxidants are in the peel or outer skin of fruit and vegetables, peeling eliminates a significant portion of antioxidants. When you boil berries to make jam, the heat denatures the antioxidant capacity of the vitamin C and phytonutrients. Jam has little antioxidant capacity especially when compared to fresh berries. Steaming vegetables holds on to more antioxidants than if you boil them in water. The nutrient lutein found in kale is digested more effectively when the plant cell walls are broken down through cooking or pureeing.
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