Greetings, it's Eric Bakker the naturopath from New Zealand.
Thanks for coming back.
Let's talk about polyphenols again, and look at some of the foods, the best foods in terms
of polyphenol content, okay?
So I've drawn up a list here, which we're going to talk about.
Probably can't see it as all the light reflecting off it.
Probably the highest group of polyphenols, really, would be things like spices, all right?
If we look at cloves, anise star seed, and we look at the tumeric, and we look at various
spices like that, these are exceedingly concentrated sources of polyphenols.
So everything I'm going to tell you here is based on per hundred grams, okay?
So if we look at cloves, the spice called cloves, obviously you're not going to eat
a hundred grams of cloves.
You'd probably end up in the hospital if you ate that much.
You'd be pretty sick.
But because the polyphenol content is so high of spices, you only need a tiny little bit
to still get a significant amount in your diet, okay?
Now you can see why I like adding things like cloves, and star anise seed, and cinnamon,
and tumeric, and these sort of things to my cooking, because you're just getting more
antioxidants, more polyphenols in your diet.
So cloves contain over 15,000 milligrams of polyphenol per hundred grams of cloves.
That's a lot of polyphenol content.
Star anise seed is a lot less.
We're looking at just over 5,000, really, between 5,000 to 6,000 milligrams, which is
still a lot.
Star anise seed is a beautiful spice to eat.
You might want to have a look at that one.
Peppermint is also exceedingly high.
Even though it's a high source of salicylates, which for some people are an anti-nutrient
and can affect them.
Pretty rare though, for peppermint to affect people that badly, but I really encourage
you to grow peppermint in your garden or in a pot because it makes the most wonderful
tea.
A nice piece of lemon grass and some peppermint and some boiling water, fantastic cup of tea.
So peppermint, 12,000 milligrams of polyphenol per hundred grams of dry peppermint.
But if you're going to have a cup of peppermint tea a day like I do, you're going to get still
plenty of polyphenols in your diet.
So it's very high.
The second category we look at would be chocolate, dark chocolate, and cocoa, exceedingly high
sources.
If we look at dark chocolate, we've got 3,500 milligrams, really, per hundred grams of dark
chocolate.
But once we drop down to the milk chocolate, of course, it went well under half of that
amount.
So the darker the chocolate, and the less junk in it, if it's just plain powder, it's
going to have a higher polyphenol content than something that's processed into a food.
So chocolate and cocoa pull right up there with polyphenols, with the antioxidant value,
again.
If we look at the third category, we'd be looking at the berry fruits, particularly
the purple and the blueberries, okay?
Blueberries contain around 5,000 to 6,000 milligrams of polyphenols per hundred grams
of blueberries.
When we drop down to strawberries and raspberries, we're going to drop down exponentially, but
always think about that purple, that blue purple color.
That's the one really, that you're looking for.
So that's the berries.
So blackberries, for example, 260 milligrams, blueberries 560 to 600 milligrams per hundred
grams of the berry.
If we look at the non berry fruit, black currents have got, in fact, a higher polyphenol content
than blueberries.
Black currents, you may have heard of them, the small round black current, exceptionally
good source of vitamin C, but also full of flavonoids.
So this probably in my opinion, would be the pick of the bunch out of this page would be
black currents and blueberries.
And they actually pair quite nice together when you eat them too.
We grow many black currant bushes, as well as blueberry bushes on our section.
And they're very nice to sell, and add to foods, and things like that.
So, yeah, that's black currents.
And then if we look at the other non berry fruits, we're looking at plums, okay, especially
like the black, the dark plums, the blue ones, the purple ones.
Those are the ones you want to be eating, okay?
Between 300 to 400 milligrams per hundred grams, again.
And cherries, we're dropping down to 270 to 300.
The beans category, number four, five, beans, black beans, of course, because they're dark
again.
They've got the highest polyphenol content.
Also very good fiber content.
So people who eat beans, dry beans, like I do, like legumes, and beans, and chickpeas,
and things like that, tend to have a better gut.
My opinion, a better beneficial flora for people who exclude those foods from the diet.
These are good foods for bowel flora.
Black beans contain 59 to 60 plus, milligrams per hundred grams of beans.
They contain that polyphenol content.
So if we go to the next category, the nuts.
Nuts are surprisingly high in polyphenols, you see.
If you look at hazel nuts, if you look at pecans, or pecans, whatever you want to call
them, hazelnuts have got a very high content, between 400 to 500 milligrams per hundred
grams of nuts, and pecans are around about the same, about 400 to 500.
And again, you're not going to eat a hundred milligrams of nuts per day, okay, you might
just eat a few.
Remember, always keep the nut consumption to very small amounts, okay?
Men are especially crazy.
I've seen patients over the years eat handfuls of nuts per day, and they wonder why they've
got a bowel problem.
You only need a few.
If we go to the vegetables, it's surprising.
Veggies, many veggies contain them, but fruits contain higher polyphenol content than vegetables.
Always remember that.
Red onions, 170 milligrams of polyphenol per hundred grams.
Artichoke, between 200 to 300.
Spinach, between 100 to 120 to 130 milligrams, content.
Red onions, of course, contain more polyphenols than the plain onion, the plain white onion.
Soy contains a surprisingly amount of polyphenols, okay?
One hundred grams of flour between 400 to 500 milligrams of polyphenols, and tofu contains
also, 40 to 50 milligrams per hundred grams.
I'm a big fan of tofu, but I know a lot of people watching this channel are not soy fans
at all, but that's your personal preference.
Green tea, also black tea, lots and lots of different types of antioxidants, polyphenols
in these compounds, anywhere between 70 to 100, or even 150 milligrams plus, per hundred
milligrams of tea.
And red wine, of course, 100 milligrams plus, per 100 mils.
So just a small amount of red wine per day is enough for many people to get a very good
level of polyphenols into their diet.
We're not talking about a bottle of wine a day.
We're talking about a glass of wine a day, right?
It should keep the doctor away, especially if you have an apple with the wine.
Thanks for tuning in.