Thursday, November 15, 2007

Prawns with Lemon for Superantioxidants

We all hear news stories and read articles about the benefits of antioxidants -- whether by eating certain foods or taking through dietary supplements. I ran across this article today that describes researchers have come up with a commercially viable means of extracting a powerful antioxidant, astaxanthin, from prawn heads. It claims to be about 10 times stronger than antioxidants in other foods. The article is light on detail, but it sounds like they do a supercritical fluid extraction from the shells of prawn heads.

This is good news for my father-in-law who enjoys the shell on prawns with the heads. He's getting plenty of antioxidants. That's one dish we've had at Pah Ke's Chinese Restaurant and maybe we'll be able to get some in a few weeks. I like it, but can't do the heads. I might have to change my mind.

I also saw this article today that talks about a study that found citrus or vitamin C enhances the absorbtion of antioxidants from green tea or green tea extract by 13 times. Pretty significant. I guess that's why you always get tea with lemon for a sore throat.

So putting these two findings together, I'm guessing that eating prawn heads with the shell on that are covered in lemon juice would give enough antioxidant power to produce a fountain of youth effect. I'm sure someone is already running this research study.

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