The new book by Rosanna Lambertucci has been released , ” The diet to live 100 years ” (ed. Mondadori), a book in which the famous journalist, who has always been attentive to health, explains the importance of a diet based on seasonality and food. antioxidants to live well and for a long time. Here I present a preview of the book: antioxidant foods cataloged according to the ORAC index (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity), all of natural origin (therefore no supplement), which can be part of our daily diet according to seasonality.

ANTIOXIDANT FOODS: A LIST
Foods are divided into three groups, from those with the highest antioxidant power and high Orac index (expressed in units) to those with lower antioxidant power. As a rule, our diet should exceed 2,000 Orac units per day. Below we see the list of antioxidant foods recommended by Lambertucci.

In fact, I want to clarify (which the author does not do), that this list found in the book “The diet to live 100 years” is not the list of the most antioxidant foods : in fact, consider that a glass of wine contains more antioxidants of a cup of blueberries, and that among the foods with the greatest antioxidant value we find spices and dried aromatic herbs (tens of thousands of units: among these, cloves reach 290 thousand units).

Also bear in mind that antioxidant foods are not necessarily natural . Even Oreo cookies are on the list of antioxidants developed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the USDA!
Leaving aside spices and aromatic herbs, among the most antioxidant foods we have blackberries and black sorghum. 

ANTIOXIDANT FOODS OF THE FIRST GROUP
(THE MOST ANTIOXIDANTS according to Rosanna Lambertucci)

Artichoke (one) – 9828 units
Grape juice (one glass) – 5200 units
Blueberries (one cup) – 3480 units
Green Broccoli (one serving) – 2265 units
Cooked Spinach (one serving) – 2040 units
Avocado (one, Hass variety) – 1922 units (in the book it says 1022, but I think it’s a typo)
Orange juice (one glass) – 1782 units
Black plums (3) – 1454 units
More (1 cup) – 1465 units
Grapefruit juice (one glass) – 1275 units
Orange juice (one glass) – 1150 units

If we wanted to have the complete list of substances according to their antioxidant value, here is an exhaustive and constantly updated list (in English), here.

Ultimately, consider this: there is a lot of talk about antioxidant foods, and this Orac is a unit of measure for determining their value and a simple technique: however, the ability of antioxidant foods to fight free radicals is not a indeed, scientific certainty is still a field of investigation. This according to the USDA itself , which explains (I’ll translate it briefly):
“There is no evidence that the beneficial effects of foods rich in polyphenols can be attributed to the antioxidant properties of those foods. Data on the antioxidant capacity of foods, generated with in vitro techniques cannot be extrapolated to test their effects in vivo (on humans), and clinical studies to test the benefits of food antioxidants have produced mixed results. We know that antioxidant molecules in foods have a broad spectrum of functions, many of which are not related to the ability to fight free radicals “.