September 16, 2025 • 13 mins
The health world is filled with buzzwords like "antioxidants," "free radicals," and "superfoods," but what's actually happening in our bodies when we encounter these substances? This episode cuts through the marketing hype to deliver straightforward science you can actually use.
Free radicals function like sparks within your body - necessary in small amounts but potentially damaging when uncontrolled. These unstable molecules form naturally during metabolism and increase with exposure to processed foods, environmental toxins, and stress. Left unchecked, they create oxidative stress that accelerates aging and disease. Antioxidants work as your body's defense system, neutralizing these harmful molecules before they cause cellular damage.
While expensive "superfoods" and supplements get most of the attention, research consistently shows that everyday whole foods provide equal or superior antioxidant protection. Colorful fruits and vegetables, herbs and spices, and even modest amounts of coffee and dark chocolate deliver powerful antioxidant benefits without the marketing markup. The vibrant colors in these foods aren't just visually appealing - they're nature's way of signaling their protective properties.
Ready to boost your antioxidant intake? Start by aiming for 5-9 palm-sized servings of fruits and vegetables daily, emphasizing variety in colors. This week, challenge yourself to add two new colorful foods to your plate. Remember that small, consistent changes create meaningful health improvements over time. Your body doesn't need exotic supplements or fancy powders - it needs the rainbow of nutrients found in whole, minimally processed foods.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
you've probably heard about antioxidants, superfoods
and free radicals, but what dothese words really mean?
Today we're cutting through thenoise and talking about what
the science actually says.
Thanks for joining us onanother episode of living a full
life.
Free radicals, antioxidantswords you may have heard back in
high school, but what do theyreally mean?
(00:24):
What do they do?
And really the simple analogyof all this is that think of
free radicals like little sparksinside of your body.
In small amounts they're normal, but if the sparks fly
everywhere without beingcontrolled, they cause a lot of
damage, and I like that analogyof what free radicals are.
They're unstable moleculesformed when your body breaks
(00:46):
down.
Food, exercise or is exposed totoxins like smoke, pollution,
processed foods and even stress.
Too many equals oxidativestress in the body, which
contributes to aging,inflammation and disease like
heart disease, cancer,alzheimer's, and the list goes
on.
So free radicals are no buenobecause they're sparks and these
(01:11):
sparks can cause a lot ofdamage if they get out of
control.
We increase these sparks in thebody by eating processed foods.
That's the number one source ofit.
Number two is stress.
We put ourselves through a lotof stress mentally and
physically by sitting in similarpositions every day in front of
computers and not exercising,or exercising aggressively, but
(01:32):
really through the processedfoods, the snacks that we choose
, the carbohydrates that wechoose, the packaged foods that
we choose.
That's where free radicals loveto develop.
So the way to fight them is withwhat we call antioxidants.
Antioxidants go in and they'relike fire extinguishers they
neutralize the free radicalsbefore they can cause major
(01:54):
damage.
The body already makes someantioxidants naturally, like
glutathione, superoxide,demutase and some other ones
that your body just produces.
And food provides extra helpVitamins like vitamin C E,
minerals like selenium, zinc,and plant compounds like
(02:15):
polyphenols and flavonoids.
We get these through wholefoods.
We can supplement them as well,but the key point is that
balance is everything.
You need some free radicals forimmune defense, but
antioxidants keep them in check.
So everything plays a role, andmedicine and influencers and
(02:37):
Instagram have made thisdepiction that there's cheats
and biohacks and simple ways tocut corners when really there
isn't, and that there's goodthings and bad things when
really the human body doesn'twork that way.
Everything that happens in thehuman body was done by design,
even free radicals.
They play a little role inthere.
Those sparks can help putammunition into your immune
(03:02):
system to help fight off disease, bacteria, viruses and
pathologies.
So antioxidants play a smallrole.
These sparks can be used asammunition by your immune system
to help fight things off, butonce you have too many of them
they can cause fires.
So the best antioxidants and ifyou grew up with me, you know
(03:24):
80s, 90s, 2000s and thesuperfood eras and all that
stuff let's break down thosemyths too.
But antioxidants come throughour whole foods and let's talk
about them.
Fruits mainly the small fruitsacai, blueberries, strawberries,
raspberries, pomegranates,citrus they all have amazing
antioxidant properties to them,especially the fresher that they
(03:46):
are.
So fresh fruits play a hugerole in that.
That's why eating them off thevine is the best.
Eating them and not juicingthem is where I'm trying to get
to on this.
Vegetables leafy green broccoli,bell peppers, carrots those
bright vegetables are brightbecause of their antioxidants.
There's other things too, likegreen tea, coffee Coffee itself,
(04:08):
in moderation, has anantioxidant properties to it.
Dark chocolate, the 70% plusnuts, seeds, beans, herbs and
spices like turmeric, cinnamon,oregano these things all have
antioxidant properties in them.
Many parts of the world useherbs and spices in a lot of
(04:29):
their cooking and have greathealth benefits from them.
The Mediterranean is known fortheir turmeric, cinnamon,
oregano, thyme, and the MiddleEast is.
You know their spices that theyuse there chili peppers and
pepper flakes and all theseother things that they use in
the curry and some other herbsthat they use in there as well.
(04:52):
But turmeric is used around theworld and these things are
antioxidant in themselves.
Some superfoods that you mayhave heard of in the past that
got a lot of hype and maybe someoverhype due to marketing
things like goji berries, acaibowls, exotic powders.
They can be good, but they'renot miracle cures.
Acai was this huge thing for along time and goji and
(05:17):
gooseberries and all thesethings that were, and they came
in God because of the fads,because they were really just
marketing tools to just pushthem a lot faster but really
didn't have any more benefitthan blueberries.
So science shows that every day, affordable foods like apples,
beans, kale, blueberries can bejust as powerful or more
powerful than expensive imports.
(05:38):
So keep it simple you don'tneed superfood powders.
Whole foods do the job just aswell.
There is no such thing assuperfoods, just healthy foods
and bad foods, and having aclean, fine line between the two
and eating a lot of the goodstuff and very little of the bad
(05:58):
stuff.
That's how we keep inflammationat check, free radicals at
check, cancer causing agents atcheck.
All of these things is byhaving a clean, defined line and
strict rules in your home ofwhat's in the pantry, what's in
the fridge, and keeping it verysimple.
So eat the rainbow when itcomes to your fruits and
(06:20):
vegetables.
Those colors are there for areason.
They're there to entice you toeat them, because it's like, hey
, man, I'm good for you, eatthis.
I'm bright orange, I'm a carrot, eat me.
I'm a bright yellow bell pepper, eat me.
It's because they're there forappeal and it's for all animals
to eat them.
That's the whole point of it.
Eat the rainbow.
(06:41):
Different colors equaldifferent antioxidants.
It's what gives them theircolor and their minerals.
Don't rely on supplements.
Always go food first and thensupplement.
Supplements can help if we'redeficient in certain things, but
high dose pills don'toutperform real food.
The literature supports thisacross the board.
Supplementing vitamins intoyour system, compared to eating
(07:05):
them, have drastic differentoutcomes.
People who eat them from wholefoods have very different
outcomes than supplementation.
So that's why your medicaldoctor may not be too excited
about vitamins all the time whenyou go in and talk to them and
they're like, eh, you don'treally need it.
It's not because they don'tbelieve in them, it's because
they read the literature, andit's not very overwhelming to
(07:27):
tell your patients to take morevitamin E and K and A rather
than eat a good diet.
So they don't talk about thegood diet either, though.
So I do, because eating healthyfoods is the foundation to all
success when it comes to health.
Aim for at least five to nineservings of fruits and
(07:48):
vegetables daily.
A serving is the palm of yourhand.
Eat five to nine of these eachday.
You'd be surprised.
It's easy to get those five inNine.
You're doing great, and that'swhat you want to do every single
day, to make sure you'regetting enough variety and
probably covering your bases forantioxidants, anti-inflammatory
foods, vitamins and minerals.
(08:09):
It's just a great rule Cookwith herbs and spices.
Add that.
They taste great.
Add it to your foods.
Add it to your meats.
Add it to your veggies.
It just gives you that extrataste.
Add it to your kids' foodoregano, thyme, garlic, ginger.
See what they like, see whatthey don't like it into their
food.
Cook with it.
It will help everyone.
(08:29):
Small, small amounts of thisstuff pack huge antioxidant
power, so think about that.
Free radicals are normal.
Just remember that antioxidantskeep them in check.
Balance is the goal when itcomes to all of this stuff.
Don't chase the superfoods.
Don't do the marketing ploysthe avocado fad, the acai bowl
(08:52):
fad.
You go to some of these storesI'm not going to name them like
Green and Berry, and you buy abowl and it's got like 1400
calories packed with sugar andyou're like how can this healthy
bowl have so much sugar in it?
Well, it's because they addsugar to all of this stuff.
It's not just whole foods Makeit super tasty.
(09:15):
That's why we want to go andeat it.
It's because of the sugar.
So you got to make your ownstuff at home when it comes to
healthy foods.
Build an antioxidant richlifestyle by eating the variety
of fruits and vegetables.
That's how you do it.
You don't have to go out andbuy any books.
You don't have to join anyprograms.
You don't have to buy any superfoods or supplements or any
type of MLM stuff that's outthere promising you great
(09:38):
antioxidant outcomes If youdon't change your diet and you
keep adding inflammation to thediet and keep adding kerosene to
the sparks and to the fireinside of our body.
No supplement out there is goingto outweigh that, the heaviness
from that.
So we have to just supplementour diet and eat well to reduce
(09:58):
the sparks, to reduce the fire,to reduce the heat in the body,
the inflammation.
Then when you start to addsupplements they can really
boost certain things like energy, sleep, feeling, decrease in
pain, decrease in swelling.
It can really help.
That's who we see it.
But the people who don't getmuch it's typically the
(10:18):
50-year-old dude that you givethem hey, take this vitamin.
They're like I took the vitamin, I don't feel any different.
Well, it's because you can'tdrink a case of beer.
I took the vitamin, I don'tfeel any different.
Well, it's because you can'tdrink a case of beer.
Dip, dip, dip, dip.
You can't do that.
You can't stay in a constantthing of inflammation and then
go out and take some vitamin Eand be like, well, it didn't
really help.
Well, no, it didn't help.
You got to change this first.
(10:38):
You got to change thefoundation.
First, aim for five to ninefruits and vegetables cooked
with spices we talked about that.
Build an antioxidant-richlifestyle with variety.
And then this week my goal foryou, or my challenge for you is
to try to add two more colors toyour plate.
It can be your lunch plate,your dinner plate, maybe some
(11:00):
blueberries at breakfast orroasted peppers at dinner.
Small changes add up to bighealth over time and it's just
by making those small changes.
The best tips when we talk aboutelimination diets or things
where we're trying to helppeople get through some health
conditions, is eliminate andthen just add good stuff and
(11:21):
start to build from the goodstuff.
An elimination protocol is moreto see what we're allergic to
or what we react to.
So we clean the slate.
We eat clean base meals forlike seven days, then we start
to add foods back to our dietand see where we react.
You don't need to do that atthat type of a scale.
What you can do is be like yeah, I know I always default to
(11:42):
that bad thing that I eat in themorning the yogurt.
It's not whole fat Greek yogurt, it's the sweet stuff with the
blueberries already in it.
I know it's a lot of sugar.
I'm going to get rid of that.
I'm not going to buy thatanymore.
I'm going to switch to wholefat Greek yogurt and I'll add my
blueberries in there.
You see what we're saying so wemake a swap out, or maybe it's
(12:03):
just a food that has to go andsomething that has to come in.
You're like, yes, we're just badwith veggies.
We just don't cook veggies.
The kids don't eat them.
Well, you're going to just haveto start cooking with them,
pick the ones that they like andrun with them, whether it's
broccoli or mushrooms orwhatever it is.
Run with that, eat more of themand then start to sneak in the
other colors as well.
Life you do the better.
Hopefully, that was some goodtips for you.
(12:25):
Short podcast this week, butpacks a major punch with
antioxidants.
Remember, the free radicals arethere.
They're not good, but they doplay a role in the body.
It's your job to eat a varietyfrom the colors of the rainbow
in your fruits and vegetables tomake sure that you offset free
radicals with things that arecalled antioxidants.
Stay well, stay healthy andtake care.
you've probably heard about antioxidants, superfoods
and free radicals, but what dothese words really mean?
Today we're cutting through thenoise and talking about what
the science actually says.
Thanks for joining us onanother episode of living a full
life.
Free radicals, antioxidantswords you may have heard back in
high school, but what do theyreally mean?
(00:24):
What do they do?
And really the simple analogyof all this is that think of
free radicals like little sparksinside of your body.
In small amounts they're normal, but if the sparks fly
everywhere without beingcontrolled, they cause a lot of
damage, and I like that analogyof what free radicals are.
They're unstable moleculesformed when your body breaks
(00:46):
down.
Food, exercise or is exposed totoxins like smoke, pollution,
processed foods and even stress.
Too many equals oxidativestress in the body, which
contributes to aging,inflammation and disease like
heart disease, cancer,alzheimer's, and the list goes
on.
So free radicals are no buenobecause they're sparks and these
(01:11):
sparks can cause a lot ofdamage if they get out of
control.
We increase these sparks in thebody by eating processed foods.
That's the number one source ofit.
Number two is stress.
We put ourselves through a lotof stress mentally and
physically by sitting in similarpositions every day in front of
computers and not exercising,or exercising aggressively, but
(01:32):
really through the processedfoods, the snacks that we choose
, the carbohydrates that wechoose, the packaged foods that
we choose.
That's where free radicals loveto develop.
So the way to fight them is withwhat we call antioxidants.
Antioxidants go in and they'relike fire extinguishers they
neutralize the free radicalsbefore they can cause major
(01:54):
damage.
The body already makes someantioxidants naturally, like
glutathione, superoxide,demutase and some other ones
that your body just produces.
And food provides extra helpVitamins like vitamin C E,
minerals like selenium, zinc,and plant compounds like
(02:15):
polyphenols and flavonoids.
We get these through wholefoods.
We can supplement them as well,but the key point is that
balance is everything.
You need some free radicals forimmune defense, but
antioxidants keep them in check.
So everything plays a role, andmedicine and influencers and
(02:37):
Instagram have made thisdepiction that there's cheats
and biohacks and simple ways tocut corners when really there
isn't, and that there's goodthings and bad things when
really the human body doesn'twork that way.
Everything that happens in thehuman body was done by design,
even free radicals.
They play a little role inthere.
Those sparks can help putammunition into your immune
(03:02):
system to help fight off disease, bacteria, viruses and
pathologies.
So antioxidants play a smallrole.
These sparks can be used asammunition by your immune system
to help fight things off, butonce you have too many of them
they can cause fires.
So the best antioxidants and ifyou grew up with me, you know
(03:24):
80s, 90s, 2000s and thesuperfood eras and all that
stuff let's break down thosemyths too.
But antioxidants come throughour whole foods and let's talk
about them.
Fruits mainly the small fruitsacai, blueberries, strawberries,
raspberries, pomegranates,citrus they all have amazing
antioxidant properties to them,especially the fresher that they
(03:46):
are.
So fresh fruits play a hugerole in that.
That's why eating them off thevine is the best.
Eating them and not juicingthem is where I'm trying to get
to on this.
Vegetables leafy green broccoli,bell peppers, carrots those
bright vegetables are brightbecause of their antioxidants.
There's other things too, likegreen tea, coffee Coffee itself,
(04:08):
in moderation, has anantioxidant properties to it.
Dark chocolate, the 70% plusnuts, seeds, beans, herbs and
spices like turmeric, cinnamon,oregano these things all have
antioxidant properties in them.
Many parts of the world useherbs and spices in a lot of
(04:29):
their cooking and have greathealth benefits from them.
The Mediterranean is known fortheir turmeric, cinnamon,
oregano, thyme, and the MiddleEast is.
You know their spices that theyuse there chili peppers and
pepper flakes and all theseother things that they use in
the curry and some other herbsthat they use in there as well.
(04:52):
But turmeric is used around theworld and these things are
antioxidant in themselves.
Some superfoods that you mayhave heard of in the past that
got a lot of hype and maybe someoverhype due to marketing
things like goji berries, acaibowls, exotic powders.
They can be good, but they'renot miracle cures.
Acai was this huge thing for along time and goji and
(05:17):
gooseberries and all thesethings that were, and they came
in God because of the fads,because they were really just
marketing tools to just pushthem a lot faster but really
didn't have any more benefitthan blueberries.
So science shows that every day, affordable foods like apples,
beans, kale, blueberries can bejust as powerful or more
powerful than expensive imports.
(05:38):
So keep it simple you don'tneed superfood powders.
Whole foods do the job just aswell.
There is no such thing assuperfoods, just healthy foods
and bad foods, and having aclean, fine line between the two
and eating a lot of the goodstuff and very little of the bad
(05:58):
stuff.
That's how we keep inflammationat check, free radicals at
check, cancer causing agents atcheck.
All of these things is byhaving a clean, defined line and
strict rules in your home ofwhat's in the pantry, what's in
the fridge, and keeping it verysimple.
So eat the rainbow when itcomes to your fruits and
(06:20):
vegetables.
Those colors are there for areason.
They're there to entice you toeat them, because it's like, hey
, man, I'm good for you, eatthis.
I'm bright orange, I'm a carrot, eat me.
I'm a bright yellow bell pepper, eat me.
It's because they're there forappeal and it's for all animals
to eat them.
That's the whole point of it.
Eat the rainbow.
(06:41):
Different colors equaldifferent antioxidants.
It's what gives them theircolor and their minerals.
Don't rely on supplements.
Always go food first and thensupplement.
Supplements can help if we'redeficient in certain things, but
high dose pills don'toutperform real food.
The literature supports thisacross the board.
Supplementing vitamins intoyour system, compared to eating
(07:05):
them, have drastic differentoutcomes.
People who eat them from wholefoods have very different
outcomes than supplementation.
So that's why your medicaldoctor may not be too excited
about vitamins all the time whenyou go in and talk to them and
they're like, eh, you don'treally need it.
It's not because they don'tbelieve in them, it's because
they read the literature, andit's not very overwhelming to
(07:27):
tell your patients to take morevitamin E and K and A rather
than eat a good diet.
So they don't talk about thegood diet either, though.
So I do, because eating healthyfoods is the foundation to all
success when it comes to health.
Aim for at least five to nineservings of fruits and
(07:48):
vegetables daily.
A serving is the palm of yourhand.
Eat five to nine of these eachday.
You'd be surprised.
It's easy to get those five inNine.
You're doing great, and that'swhat you want to do every single
day, to make sure you'regetting enough variety and
probably covering your bases forantioxidants, anti-inflammatory
foods, vitamins and minerals.
(08:09):
It's just a great rule Cookwith herbs and spices.
Add that.
They taste great.
Add it to your foods.
Add it to your meats.
Add it to your veggies.
It just gives you that extrataste.
Add it to your kids' foodoregano, thyme, garlic, ginger.
See what they like, see whatthey don't like it into their
food.
Cook with it.
It will help everyone.
(08:29):
Small, small amounts of thisstuff pack huge antioxidant
power, so think about that.
Free radicals are normal.
Just remember that antioxidantskeep them in check.
Balance is the goal when itcomes to all of this stuff.
Don't chase the superfoods.
Don't do the marketing ploysthe avocado fad, the acai bowl
(08:52):
fad.
You go to some of these storesI'm not going to name them like
Green and Berry, and you buy abowl and it's got like 1400
calories packed with sugar andyou're like how can this healthy
bowl have so much sugar in it?
Well, it's because they addsugar to all of this stuff.
It's not just whole foods Makeit super tasty.
(09:15):
That's why we want to go andeat it.
It's because of the sugar.
So you got to make your ownstuff at home when it comes to
healthy foods.
Build an antioxidant richlifestyle by eating the variety
of fruits and vegetables.
That's how you do it.
You don't have to go out andbuy any books.
You don't have to join anyprograms.
You don't have to buy any superfoods or supplements or any
type of MLM stuff that's outthere promising you great
(09:38):
antioxidant outcomes If youdon't change your diet and you
keep adding inflammation to thediet and keep adding kerosene to
the sparks and to the fireinside of our body.
No supplement out there is goingto outweigh that, the heaviness
from that.
So we have to just supplementour diet and eat well to reduce
(09:58):
the sparks, to reduce the fire,to reduce the heat in the body,
the inflammation.
Then when you start to addsupplements they can really
boost certain things like energy, sleep, feeling, decrease in
pain, decrease in swelling.
It can really help.
That's who we see it.
But the people who don't getmuch it's typically the
(10:18):
50-year-old dude that you givethem hey, take this vitamin.
They're like I took the vitamin, I don't feel any different.
Well, it's because you can'tdrink a case of beer.
I took the vitamin, I don'tfeel any different.
Well, it's because you can'tdrink a case of beer.
Dip, dip, dip, dip.
You can't do that.
You can't stay in a constantthing of inflammation and then
go out and take some vitamin Eand be like, well, it didn't
really help.
Well, no, it didn't help.
You got to change this first.
(10:38):
You got to change thefoundation.
First, aim for five to ninefruits and vegetables cooked
with spices we talked about that.
Build an antioxidant-richlifestyle with variety.
And then this week my goal foryou, or my challenge for you is
to try to add two more colors toyour plate.
It can be your lunch plate,your dinner plate, maybe some
(11:00):
blueberries at breakfast orroasted peppers at dinner.
Small changes add up to bighealth over time and it's just
by making those small changes.
The best tips when we talk aboutelimination diets or things
where we're trying to helppeople get through some health
conditions, is eliminate andthen just add good stuff and
(11:21):
start to build from the goodstuff.
An elimination protocol is moreto see what we're allergic to
or what we react to.
So we clean the slate.
We eat clean base meals forlike seven days, then we start
to add foods back to our dietand see where we react.
You don't need to do that atthat type of a scale.
What you can do is be like yeah, I know I always default to
(11:42):
that bad thing that I eat in themorning the yogurt.
It's not whole fat Greek yogurt, it's the sweet stuff with the
blueberries already in it.
I know it's a lot of sugar.
I'm going to get rid of that.
I'm not going to buy thatanymore.
I'm going to switch to wholefat Greek yogurt and I'll add my
blueberries in there.
You see what we're saying so wemake a swap out, or maybe it's
(12:03):
just a food that has to go andsomething that has to come in.
You're like, yes, we're just badwith veggies.
We just don't cook veggies.
The kids don't eat them.
Well, you're going to just haveto start cooking with them,
pick the ones that they like andrun with them, whether it's
broccoli or mushrooms orwhatever it is.
Run with that, eat more of themand then start to sneak in the
other colors as well.
Life you do the better.
Hopefully, that was some goodtips for you.
(12:25):
Short podcast this week, butpacks a major punch with
antioxidants.
Remember, the free radicals arethere.
They're not good, but they doplay a role in the body.
It's your job to eat a varietyfrom the colors of the rainbow
in your fruits and vegetables tomake sure that you offset free
radicals with things that arecalled antioxidants.
Stay well, stay healthy andtake care.
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