A Better Breakfast

According to this study, by far the most comprehensive of its kind in history, there are only three whole foods on the planet that have more antioxidant power than cloves. One of them is amla—dried Indian gooseberries. Now, not only is it more powerful, but also more palatable. You could add a whole teaspoon of amla to a smoothie, and probably wouldn’t even taste it. Try doing that with a teaspoon of powdered cloves. One sip; you’d be on the floor!

Let’s look at the antioxidant content of some typical American breakfast foods: bacon [7] and eggs [+8], for example. A bowl of corn flakes [25] with milk [+9]. Egg McMuffin [16]. Pancakes [16] with maple syrup [+9]. Bagel [24] with cream cheese [+2].

Compare those to the smoothie I had this morning. A cup of unsweetened soymilk [16], a half a cup of frozen blueberries [+535]. Whoa! Alright? Already, I’ve got to shrink the scale way down. The pulp of a nice ripe Mexican mango [+124]. Note the mango alone has more antioxidants than the other breakfasts. A tablespoon of ground flax seeds, and my previous secret ingredient, a palmful of bulk white tea leaves [+101]—just throw them in there and blend them in.

Now, that used to be my breakfast smoothie, but now, a teaspoon of that gooseberry powder [+782], and we’re off the charts again. Look at it. That’s about four cents’ worth of amla—four pennies—and look what it does to my smoothie. 1,500 units of antioxidant power, and I haven’t even fully woken up yet! Way more than the five other meals combined. In fact, more than the average person gets in an entire week.

I could drink my smoothie and eat nothing but donuts the rest of the week, and most people still wouldn’t catch up. Notice, though, that even though I packed the blender with amazing stuff— blueberries, tea leaves—fully half of the antioxidant power came from that single teaspoon, that four cents’ worth of powdered gooseberries.

To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is transcript contributed by Bruce A. Hamilton.

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• Carlsen MH, Halvorsen BL, Holte K, Bøhn SK, Dragland S, Sampson L, Willey C, Senoo H, Umezono Y, Sanada C, Barikmo I, Berhe N, Willett WC, Phillips KM, Jacobs DR Jr, Blomhoff R. The total antioxidant content of more than 3100 foods, beverages, spices, herbs and supplements used worldwide. Nutr J. 2010 Jan 22; 9:3.
• USDA. National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Release 23 (2010).

Images thanks to Stangoldsmith, Fir0002, H. Zell, Potesara, Miguel Andrade, Evan-Amos, NIH, Rumun999, and WJ Houtman via Wikimedia Commons, and Renee Comet for the National Cancer Institute.

• amla
• antioxidants
• bacon
• bagels
• berries
• blueberries
• breakfast
• breakfast cereal
• cloves
• dairy
• dried fruit
• eggs
• flaxseeds
• frozen fruit
• fruit
• gooseberries
• India
• mango
• maple syrup
• meat
• milk
• oxidative stress
• phytonutrients
• pork
• recipes
• seeds
• smoothies
• soy
• soy milk
• standard American diet
• white tea