Tasty ways to add a sprinkle of antioxidants to your diet

Tasty ways to add a sprinkle of antioxidants to your diet

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Story Published: Nov 10, 2008 at 5:14 PM PDT

Story Updated: Nov 21, 2008 at 5:26 AM PDT

By Good Housekeeping Research Institute

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We've all heard about antioxidants -- the substances in many foods that can help fight disease. There are simple and easy ways to add these disease-fighting substances to your diet.

Samantha Cassetty, R.D., nutrition director at the Good Housekeeping Research Institute says pomegranate juice and blueberries are not the sources of antioxidants.

Toss a pinch of cinnamon into your holiday hot cocoa and you'll be getting a huge dose of antioxidants in each sip.

"Some of the holiday spices, like cinnamon and cloves, are also really potent sources of antioxidants," Cassetty said. "And, in fact, cinnamon is an even better source of antioxidants than either blueberries or pomegranate juice. (it's) a great way to spice up your holidays is to add some of these flavorings to your favorite holiday foods like ginger bread, pumpkin pie, sauteed carrots."

Good Housekeeping suggests sprinkling a pinch of ground cloves over a baked sweet potato.

Ginger is another potent source of antioxidants

"The one thing I like to do is saute a pound of baby carrots with a half teaspoon of ginger," Cassetty said. "Gingerbread cookies are a great way to get your antioxidants over the holidays because they incorporate ginger, cloves, and cinnamon, so it's a really fun and delicious way to get your kids to eat antioxidants too."

Processed foods usually contain less antioxidants than fresh foods and uncooked foods.

The government recently calculated antioxidant scores for food. Red delicious apples and dark chocolate came out on top. So maybe the the new saying should be: an apple a day and a little chocolate, too, can keep the doctor away.

By the way, experts say it's best to get your antioxidants from real food, not supplements.

While we're on the subject of food, expect to pay even more at the grocery store next year.

A group of food-industry economists predict food prices will rise by at least 7 percent in 2009 because of higher feed costs for chickens, hogs and cattle. That would make it the third year in a row food prices rose faster than the overall U.S. inflation rate. Food inflation right now is the highest since 1990.

And if you think you're paying more when you dine out, you're right. Menu prices at restaurants are up 4.3 percent so far this year. Again, that's the largest increase since 1990.

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