Flavonoids :) (Road to Healthy part 12)

Hello :)

Today I'm here with a long awaited road to healthy post, you're welcome. I have been actually reading about a lot of different health related topics, but it's difficult to choose, what to write about. I chose flavonoids, since I feel like most people have no clue what they are or why they need them, so I thought I'd write a bit about these magical compounds.

The flavonoids are a grop of compunds found in plants, they used to be labeled as vitamin P, after paprika, which is a rich source of flavonoids. They are generally found in fruits and vegetables, for example in apples, prunes, cabbage, citrus fruits, grapeseeds, walnuts, blackberries, tomatoes and also in tea and coffee. Good sources of flavonoids are also cocoa, yes that includes chocolate, especially dark chocolate and red wine.

There are actually quite a lot of different types of flavonoids, but I won't go much indepth into that in this post. I'll just explain, why they are considered so magical and why I think everybody should increase their intake of flavonoids. 

All flavonoids are anti-oxidants, they protect the blood vessels and ease the symptoms of diabetes, they also help prevent heart disease and slow the spread of cancer, some studies even say that they can cure cancer, since they cut away the bloodflow into the tumor or cancer cells. If that's not worth calling magical, then I don't know what is.

During the recent years people have been consuming less flavonoids, which can be also linked to the  increase in allergies, arthritis and asthma. One of the reasons, why we're consuming less flavonoids, is that the highest concentration of flavonoids can be found in the skin, peel, leaves and seeds of fruits and vegetables, unfortunately most people discard these parts of fruit and vegetables and therefore are not getting the maximum benefit of what they're eating.

Some more fun facts are that flavonoids can be used for dental care, since a type of flavonoids target the bacteria which cause dental decay and another type of this compound is used in cosmetics, because they form a protetctive shield around collagen and elastin fibres which give skin its firmness and texture.

One last thing I'd like to mention in this post is soy. Soy is one of the best sources of plant protein, it actually has as good ratings as animal protein, without the fat. Soy beans are rich in anti-cancer compounds, one of which are isoflavones. In fact soy has been proven to have many health benefits, which at least makes me want to include it more into my diet, unfortunately, where I live, it's not a very common thing to find on the shelves of shops. That's also partly why I'm writing this post, to raise awareness a bit and maybe get us one step closer to improving our health and having more healthy options. I know that a lot of people are not going to read this post, but that's at least something I can do.

Until next post,

Kaiela :)