It is no secret that eating fruit is good for you and has plenty of health benefits - but what are they? Generally, people who eat more fruit as part of a healthy diet are less likely to develop diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s and cancer, and they provide your body with all the nutrients it needs to fight other infections and repair cells, too.
Most people want to be as healthy as possible. We want to be able to enjoy life without the constraints of illness and disease, and live a long, and active life. Eating fruit every day as part of a balanced diet is just one of the ways we can improve our health, and give our bodies a helping hand in living to a ripe old age.
Why Fruit?
These days our bodies need more vitamins and minerals than ever before. This is because we work longer hours, are exposed to more toxic fumes from pollution and are under more stress than we used to be. Eating fruit every day is a simple way of providing your body with these nutrients to ensure you are well equipped to deal with the stresses of daily life, and possibly protect you from illnesses in the future.
A diet involving regular amounts of fruit will provide your body with antioxidants to help prevent free radicals from attacking the body.
Free Radicals
Free radicals are molecules that are produced when our bodies react with oxygen. They react with other molecules within cells and can damage their proteins, membranes and genes. The damage caused can lead to the onset of disease, in particular Alzheimer’s, heart disease and cancer. It also contributes to the ageing of our bodies.
The following external factors also trigger the production of free radicals in the body:
* Pollution
* Sunlight
* Smoking
* Alcohol
This means we are exposed to more free radicals than ever before.
Antioxidants
The body also naturally produces antioxidants, which fight free radicals and help prevent premature ageing and the onset of disease. These antioxidants neutralize the free radicals and stop them attacking our healthy cells. Because we are exposed to more and more free radicals every day, we need more antioxidants to neutralize them.
Fruit is a great source of antioxidants. Eating them regularly will stop free radicals attacking and mutating our cells.
Other Health Benefits
Fruit is also paced with dietary fibre, which helps to keep your digestion system running properly. Not only will this help expel waste products more efficiently, but it can also help prevent colon and bowel cancers as well, as there will be fewer toxins exposed to that area for less time.
How Much Fruit Neutralizes Free Radicals?
You should eat five portions of fruit or vegetables each day as part of a balanced diet. This should give you a mixture of all the nutrients and vitamins necessary to ward off free radicals.
The fruit can be consumed in a number of ways - in smoothies, on its own as a snack, on pizza or dried on breakfast cereal. There is a very wide variety of fruit for you to chose from, so you needn’t eat the same fruit each day (in fact, it’s better for you if you eat a wider range of fruit as possible, as different fruits have different combinations of minerals and nutrients in them).
Below is a list of the health benefits of eating five portions of fruit or vegetables a day:
* Reduced risk of a stroke and other cardiovascular diseases
* Reduced risk of developing type 2 diabetes
* Reduced risk of developing certain cancers, including mouth, stomach and colon or bowel cancers
* Reduced risk of developing coronary heart disease
* Reduced risk of developing kidney stones and osteoporosis
Eating fruit as part of your daily diet will make you feel better, look better, and be more active and healthy. Any fruit will do, dried, frozen, fresh or tinned. Why not eat fruit instead of chocolate or crisps as a snack, or enjoy it dried over your breakfast cereal? It’s easy to enjoy fruit as part of your diet, and much healthier too.
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These flavonoid antioxidants work to keep blood platelets from sticking together and may even help keep your arteries unclogged. Milk chocolate is good too, having as much antioxidant power as red wine. And what about white chocolate? Sorry, it has no flavonoids at all.
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