Beyond Antioxidants: 3 Doable Steps to Healthier Eating

If antioxidant “scores” no longer define healthy food choices as some once thought, what’s the take-home message if you want to know realistic ways that your eating choices can make a difference in promoting good health? The science keeps getting more complicated, but as you’ll hear in Part Three of my video interview with Dr. Britt Burton-Freeman, the take-home points that research currently supports can be reined in to focus on a few core doable eating habits.

Dr. Burton-Freeman is Director of the Center for Nutrition Research at the Institute for Food Safety and Health, Illinois Institute of Technology; and Associate Researcher in the Department of Nutrition at the University of California, Davis.

In Part One of our interview, she explained the evolving science – that compounds formerly of interest as antioxidants are of more interest than ever for potential to promote health. BUT aiming for ever-higher levels of antioxidant-specific function is not the key to these benefits. In Part Two we looked at how scientists are still putting together the pieces of laboratory and human studies to understand how polyphenol and other phytochemicals may reduce risk of several chronic diseases without acting as antioxidants.  Now, in Part Three, we’ll look at the big picture view of the latest research and what steps make sense as the focus of healthy eating.

After viewing the video, read on for ideas about what today’s research means to you.

What makes sense — Focus here

Potential protection from plant-focused eating habits comes from multiple directions. These foods provide nutrients like carotenoids and vitamin C and E that can act as antioxidants and through other mechanisms that likely reduce risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and cancer. What’s more, the thousands of phytochemicals these foods provide, though not acting as antioxidants themselves within the body, seem to trigger changes in cell signaling pathways that improve blood vessel function, decrease insulin resistance and the elevated insulin levels that can result from it, reduce inflammation, and turn on expression of genes with cancer-protective effects.

Three key steps will help you capture these benefits without becoming obsessed with details we really can’t document with certainty from current research. Here are the keys:

1)  Make vegetables, fruits, whole grains and legumes (dried beans and peas) the largest part of all your meals. Substantial portions of vegetables are especially helpful for providing an array of nutrients and phytochemicals while also providing a feeling of fullness without excessive calories (as long as those vegetables aren’t fried or laden with high-calorie sauces). Fruits are terrific mixed into dishes as a complement to other flavors and are your ticket to a sweet pleasure at the end of a meal or for a snack. Whole grains provide so much more than refined grains, substitute them as often as you can. Look for ways to include nuts regularly, too. This does not mean sitting down with an open can of nuts while watching TV and then finding they all disappeared. Instead, add a few tablespoons to jazz up other healthful foods. For example, add nuts to salads and soups instead of empty-calorie, high-sodium croutons; to hot or cold cereal for extra nutrition and staying power; to pasta or vegetables dishes for fabulous crunch.

2)  Aim for variety. Many Americans have blinders when it comes to food choices, sticking to two or three different fruits, four or five vegetable choices, and a one-and-only whole grain choice (cereal or bread, most likely; never branching out to try cooked whole grains like brown rice, quinoa, whole wheat couscous or barley). Especially when it comes to phytochemicals, each plant food is unique. You’ll get the widest range of phytochemicals by stepping outside your circle and experimenting to “test drive” new choices to add to your usual habits.

3)  Spread these phytochemical-rich choices throughout your day. In human trials, the active compounds formed from polyphenols in food appear to peak and circulate for up to eight hours. Some evidence shows benefits, such as improvement in blood vessel function, particularly tied to peak level of these compounds. Other research suggests that when we eat foods high in polyphenols regularly, effects may add up and provide longer-lasting benefits. A more practical reason to spread these foods through the day, however, is that you’re then far more likely to get in amounts of these foods linked with health benefits. What’s more, when you focus on eating these nutritious foods all day, they crowd out high-calorie, low-nutrient foods. That means you eat less of those foods you’re probably trying to limit, yet do so with a positive, less deprivation-focused mindset.

It doesn’t take massive amounts of healthful foods to benefit health. Repeatedly studies show that the biggest impact comes in getting beyond the minimal consumption that has sadly become all too common.

 “Just tell me what to eat”

Among the most common questions when I give presentations about phytochemicals, plant-focused eating patterns and lower risk of heart disease and cancer: “How much of X, Y or Z do I need to eat?”

In population studies, here are some examples of what we see:

• For each serving of vegetables per day (about ½ cup each in most cases, 1 cup raw leafy choices), 11% decrease in risk of heart disease
• For each serving of fruits per day (about ½ cup many fresh or frozen choices, or one medium piece), 7% decrease in risk of heart disease
• For each 2 servings of whole grains per day, 21% lower risk of diabetes. (And comparing people who eat 2 ½ or more servings per day to those who eat them once a week or less, a 20 to 24% lower risk of heart disease.)
• People who totaled at least 5 servings of vegetables and fruits daily and accumulated at least 25 grams of dietary fiber a day (a reasonable target with a plant-focused eating pattern) had 11% lower risk of cancer than people whose total didn’t get beyond 2 ½ servings and whose fiber intake was below US average intake. Even more impressive: this lower risk was seen even after adjusting for differences in major cancer risk factors, including differences in weight control that came along with those eating habits.

Don’t push beyond the science

It’s understandable that when people hear about potential in particular foods, they want to know how much of specific choices are needed to protect health. Do you need to eat certain foods daily? Weekly? Multiple times every day?

In some population studies, people with less heart disease and certain cancers, or health markers related to their development, have been shown to consume:

• Berries at least twice a week
• Cruciferous vegetables like broccoli about 4 cups a week
• Dark green leafy vegetables daily
• Tomatoes at least 2 or 3 times a week
• Garlic 1 to 3 cloves a week
• Walnuts, almonds, pistachios and other nuts about 1½-2 oz (about 1/3 to ½ cup) a day

Nevertheless, this cannot define healthy eating. Eating even more might be better. On the other hand, eating these foods less often, but as part of an overall healthy diet, might be enough to help protect health.

♦  Even when people eat the same amount of a particular food, the content of particular nutrients and phytochemicals varies with growing conditions, storage and transport of the food, and how it was prepared.

♦  Individual differences in genetics and in the microbiota (health-promoting bacteria) in our digestive tract mean that people differ in how they metabolize the phytochemicals in food, how much of the active form of various compounds they produce, and how long these compounds circulate.

If you focus only on a few foods, even with an abundance of vegetables and fruits in your diet, you will automatically be limiting your use of other vegetables and fruits, each of which adds additional unique phytochemicals. Some day research may be able to provide more specific recommendations, even taking account of genetic differences. But even then, since we are talking about natural foods that will vary from each other, we are probably kidding ourselves when we try to get too specific about how much of a particular food is “best”.

Don’t Get Pulled Off-Focus

The potential for reducing risk of heart disease, diabetes and cancer through eating habits focused on an abundance and variety of plant foods is truly exciting. Future research may find that extracts or isolated forms of the antioxidants and other phytochemicals they contain may be helpful for certain conditions or individuals. But for now, keep your focus on your day-to-day eating choices. Even for healthful nutrients, more is not always better. Moreover, since a healthy body composition – avoiding excess body fat – is so strongly linked to reduced risk of heart disease, diabetes and cancer, a “healthy” diet is one that provides protective nutrients and phytochemicals and helps you reach and maintain a healthy weight.

These benefits come from making a variety and abundance of plant foods an ongoing part of your lifestyle, so focus on finding lots of ways to enjoy having them as a major part of each day.

Check the resources listed below for ideas and recipes. Don’t let yourself become restricted by recipes, however. I almost never follow a recipe precisely anymore. Most of the time I consider recipes “suggestions” for interesting combinations of foods and flavorings, or tips on how to prep, or how long to cook, a food with which I’m unfamiliar. With all these resources as inspiration, and the freedom that I hope you’ve gained from this series — no longer thinking that we can value foods based on a score of antioxidant power — I hope you are ready to take a few new steps. Remember, what the research is showing so far makes healthy eating do-able!

Let’s talk! What resources or inspirations help you expand the variety of plant foods you’re eating, and include them throughout your day? Please share your comments below, and we can all help one another on this journey.

Resources

If you need help re-thinking your eating habits to focus on vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans and nuts, the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) has lots of free resources to help you. The New American Plate is AICR’s vision of this plant-focused eating pattern. You’ll find tips and recipes galore.

For more inspiration for expanding the amount and variety of these healthy foods, I highly recommend the book and website of my friend and colleague, Sharon Palmer, RD, the Plant-Powered Dietitian^TM.

If whole grains are the toughest challenge for you, the Whole Grains Council has information and meal ideas you won’t want to miss.

Cooking Light magazine and website also do a great job showing how to prepare vegetables, whole grains and beans in new and interesting ways.