Antioxidant foods and supplements are more than just a healthy source of nutrition. Antioxidants produced by certain foods prevent serious, potentially life-threatening illnesses by blocking free radicals that cause heart disease, cancer, diabetes and stroke. Some antioxidant-bearing foods are easy to find at your regular grocery store, and others are sold at specialty stores and health food suppliers. They taste good and are easy to make. Others are more difficult to come by and prepare, and are sometimes less palatable as well. Those types of antioxidants are usually made into powders, pills or liquids that can be added to your diet.
Foods containing high levels of certain elements are considered "superfoods." They include citrus fruit such as grapefruit and oranges, berries including blueberries and the extremely powerful and exotic açai berry, and many other herbs and plants. The elements in these foods are vitamins such as A, C and E, and minerals such as selenium.
Vitamin and mineral antioxidants are usually available in large quantities in regular foods such as carrots, tomatoes, green tea, oatmeal and other foods containing important phytochemicals. However, some antioxidants are not as easily found in foods, and instead are created naturally by the body like catalase, superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxidase. Others are antioxidants that are similar to vitamins, but not readily available in common foods. One of these is coenzyme Q10, sometimes called CoQ10.
Antioxidants block oxidation in the body, which damages cells and increases cholesterol. By blocking the effects of oxidation, they prevent cancers, clogged arteries and other common forms of physical degeneration. The best way to get a broad supply of many types of antioxidants is to include foods rich in these elements in your diet, but sometimes that's not as easy as it sounds. You would have to eat very large quantities of a wide array of foods to get the maximum benefits of naturally occurring antioxidants. It's much simpler to incorporate a good daily dietary antioxidant supplement to cover all the bases in one simple action.