Want to help your physical and mental health? Help yourself to some foods and drinks rich in Flavonoids. Gary Crawford has more.

PARTICIPANTS: Gary Crawford and Karen Blakeslee, Kansas State University Food Scientist.

Transcript

A while back we reported to you on a diet and medical study that followed the diets and health problems of almost 3,000 people for 20 years.

A study showing, for example, those that did consume fruits and vegetables that were high in flavonoid compounds were at least 50 percent less likely to get dementia or show the signs of it.

Pretty convincing evidence according to Kansas State University Extension food scientist Karen Blakeslee.

What are flavonoids?

Well, they used to be called vitamin P.

Science has shown these compounds to be natural antioxidants.

They are active plant compounds within the foods.

They're not added to it.

It's naturally a part of the food.

Mostly a part of the dark pigments in certain fruits, berries and vegetables.

And they've been shown to even help protect against cardiovascular disease or even reduce type 2 diabetes issues.

So Karen says it would be worth our while to seek out those foods high in flavonoids.

When you hear nutrition experts recommend eating more dark colored foods, your purples, your reds, like berries and red grapes and things like that, you will be getting those flavonoid compounds.

And there are quite a few in foods like peaches, berries, tomatoes, red cabbage, onions, kale, dark green vegetables like broccoli and many times in concoctions and foods made from those.

For example, here's an ancient TV commercial, T.V. commercial.

So good, so good for you.

Take T and C.

There's six subclasses of flavonoids and one of them is called flaventhreols and tea falls into that category, also into the flavonols.

So black tea, white tea, green tea, that falls in there.

And if tea is not to your taste?

Red wine falls into there too.

Ah, yes, but of course a word of caution there.

While that's really good for the flavonoid compounds, you don't want to go overboard on consuming those.

Also there are flavonoids in chocolate, yummy chocolate.

Dark chocolate in particular.

Now while chocolate can be really tasty, we also want to keep in mind that we don't want to get carried away with it either because it does contain calories too.

Oh well, but Karen says the best way to get the most flavonoids is to consume those dark fruits and veggies directly.

So that way...

You get lots of good nutrition out of it without a whole lot of calories.

And as science continues to prove...

These fruits and vegetables really can be beneficial and down the road can really help prevent some really major life-changing diseases.

Including diabetes and even cancer.

This is Gary Crawford reporting for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.