Most of us have heard about super foods, power foods, anti ageing foods, anti oxidant rich, what are these? Do all of these fall under the same bracket? Is there any difference between them?
Let’s, understand each of these to know what is the current trend being used to market health related foods.
There are certain foods which help us to better certain bodily functions. For example, carotene in carrot for eyes, curcumin in turmeric for healing inflammation etc. These foods are known as functional foods. Now, these foods are termed fancy for catching attention by a lay man and hence we find the buzzwords like super foods for winters, power foods for summers etc are common to our ears .
What about the term Anti?
Most of the tooth pastes have come up with this term Antioxidant. What are these oxidants and what does the prefix “anti” mean ?
Oxidation is a chemical reaction that can produce free radicals, thereby leading to chain reactions that may damage the cells of organisms. Anti means against. So Anti oxidant means termination of oxidation. Therefore the foods which can turn the termination of oxidation are called as anti oxidants. There are certain antioxidants present in our body itself. This happens when our body’s immunity is strong enough to handle the army of bad entries.
Similarly, Inflammation means any kind of swelling it can be internal or external. Any component in food which reduces this inflammation ,is termed as Anti inflammatory.
Isn’t this easy to understand?
No, it’s not termination but a delay of progressive accelerated ageing. Our body age should match our actual age. The phrase to look sweet 16 at 60 doesn’t work in real life. But when one looks like a 60 year old at 30 is something which is of great concern. This is known as accelerated ageing. To avoid this kind of a condition, we need a diet rich in vitamin A and E that, which can help tremendously.
Now, the question arises that in which foods are these present? All of this can be answered by a nutritionist and a dietitian. To curate a balanced meal to provide a better lifestyle in a sustainable manner to make you look the way you need to be can be done by a dietitian.
Likewise, the quantum of each nutrient is equally important. The ratios of what and how much of each is something important in fringes of diet. As, these are though called “fringes” but if taken even a bit more it can lead to imbalance and toxicity. Therefore, know what you got from what you ate.
