Unless you are living in a cave, you must have read or heard about the many wonders of antioxidants. These powerful substances can supposedly keep you young, fit and sickness free. Antioxidants can provide many health benefits to you and you can’t do without them. But what in the world are antioxidants in the first place? And more importantly, how do they work and why you need them? This article will attempt to answer all these important questions.

In the simplest form, an antioxidant is a substance that helps fight the “free radicals” that are produced when our body digests or “oxidizes” foods. Oxidization is an necessary natural process for our body to release energy from the foods we consume. The trouble is that during the process of oxidization, free radicals in the form of “extra” electrons are released. This can be harmful to our health.Thus we need antioxidants which are like the policemen that catch the bad guys.

Clearly, you need to consume foods rich in antioxidants because these can help your body keep free radicals at bay. But, most of the food that you eat, such as fast food and other processed carbohydrates sugars and fat, contain very low levels of antioxidants. And they also increase your cholesterol level which can lead to some serious heart issues as well. So what can you do? It is definitely a good idea to reduce the intake of food low in antioxidants and increase the intake of foods high in anti oxidants. But you don’t have to cut yourself off entirely from your favorite food, just eat in moderation.

If you need to know more about antioxidants, there are lots of literature waiting for you in the world wide web. But unless you are doing a thesis, it is not crucial for you to know more than the bare facts presented in this article. As an analogy, do you need to know how a car engine work in order to drive the car? Of course not, just ask Lewis Hamilton or any other F1 driver. What’s most important for you to know is that you need a good daily source of antioxidants supply because the amount of free radicals that are running riot in your body need to be “put in jail”