Welcome to Nutrition Facts.

I'm your host, Dr. Michael Greger, and I'm here to ask you, what is the most important

decision you'll make today?

Is it how you'll get to work, who you'll set up a meeting with, what friends you'll

call for lunch?

Well, as it turns out, probably the most important decision you'll make today is what to eat.

What we eat on a day-to-day basis is the number one determinant of our health and longevity.

Literally, most premature deaths in the United States are preventable and related to nutrition.

So, we're going to explore some smart nutrition choices based naturally on facts.

Here we refer to the science, the research, the available data published in the peer-reviewed

medical literature right now.

That's why I wrote my book How Not To Die and why I created my non-profit site NutritionFacts.org.

And now, this podcast.

Today we'll take a close look at the many benefits of antioxidant-rich foods.

On average, plant foods contain 64 times the antioxidant power of animal products.

This may be why those eating more plant-based diets, even for a short amount of time, tend

to have higher antioxidant levels in their bloodstream.

The meat industry is considered adding plant foods to meat in order to boost antioxidant

levels, though ironically, this may make process meat even more carcinogenic.

To stay out of oxidative debt, we need to take in more antioxidants than we use up.

Here's how that shakes down.

The post-prandial state is a pro-oxidant state, meaning that after each meal, free radicals

...