THE AMAZING WONDERS OF PHYTONUTRIENTS
Here are various exciting compounds only found in plants which although not considered essential are extremely important and are a huge reason as to why a whole-foods plant-based diet can help to lower the risk of an angina attack by 90%, to improve digestion, increase energy levels, vitality and general wellbeing, promote better sleep and physical functioning, to maintain a healthy body weight and blood sugar levels and to lower cholesterol, depression and anxiety (1).
These wonderful compunds are called… guessed by the title?… PHYTONUTRIENTS!! (or phytochemicals). Phyto means plant in Greek and even though we know around 100000 of them exist, there’re a huge array of them we don’t know about yet.
Plant foods are often times underestimated as some people believe we only get some minerals, vitamins and fiber out of them but when you discover the existence of all the diverse phytonutrients and their amazing health benefits you’ll definitely think much highly of them. Because of this way of thinking it is sometimes believed that having a multivitamin everyday will short you out and that you can have an unbalance diet anyway… however it would always be imposible to include every single one of this nutrients into a pill, hence the theory that eating whole is always best and the more you approach to refined foods or isolated nutrients the more of this awesometastic compounds you’ll miss out on. For example it’s been shown that curcumin in turmeric is not the only substance with anti-inflammatory effect so taking a curcumin tablet will never substitute taking the fresh root itself (1).
To see everything clearly have a look at this fantastic chart by FFFL (2) (click HERE to see the image bigger):
Here you get an idea of all the different families of plant nutrients that exist with a few of their benefits (and to get an idea this is only a very simplified version of the ones we know most of).
On the following infografic below you can see a few of them divided by colors (how pretty!!); that’s why it’s always said to “eat the rainbow” because as we have seen there are unique nutrients found in certain plant-foods and not in others hence why variety is key. As amazing as berries are if you were to only eat berries all the time you’ll miss out on other amazing ones founds in every other fruit, veggie, nut, seed, pulse and grain.
In order to maximize phytonutrient absorption is it important to note a few things:
- Certain food combinations have a synergestic effect (its combination potentiates its benefits rather than simply adding them up) as seen how adding lemon to spinach can help absorb its iron content. And in this case for example adding black pepper and oils to turmeric will help with the absorption on its nutrients massively.
- The family of carotenoids also get better absorbed when mixing with oils so go for the delicious carrot-hummus combo!
- Cooking certain vegetables also help to increase the potency of certain phytonutrients, the classic example being lycopene from tomato. Steaming greens for about 3 minutes until they get a bright color help as well.
- To sum it up the antioxidant content increases in the following foods when they are cooked: carrots, spinach, mushrooms, asparagus, broccoli, cabbage, red cabbage, green and red peppers, potatoes, and tomatoes. And overall, steaming is the preferred method of cooking since it results in the biggest increase in antioxidant content (3).
- Using heat, mechanical processing, soaking, fermentation, and germination when it comes to foods like seeds, nuts, and legumes can increase the availability of phytonutrients and decrease the content of plant nutrients that are not as beneficial like phytates (lowers the absorption of certain minerals such as zinc), goitrogens (interferes with iodine uptake by the thyroid gland), and thiaminases (inactivates vitamin B1) (3).
- Peeling away skins of apples, cucumbers, etc. reduces their antioxidant content significantly (3).
- Always go for the most colorful varieties: rocket leafs better that iceberg lettuce, purple or yellow corn over white, sweet or purple potato over white, etc. As this phytonutrients act as pigments (colors) with the unique properties seen in the above graphic.
For more information you can check THIS LINK which goes deeper into the matter and is a very very interesting read.
A practical tip to make sure you are getting a good array of phytonutrients firstly to make a smoothie a few times a week (or evey day even!) and include in it a serving of greens (spinach, kale…), a serving or 2 of fruit (berries and a banana or an apple for sweetness), spices (turmeric, cinnamon or cloves are a great addition to spike the antioxidant capacity of your smoothie), seeds (pumpkin seeds, lindseeds, chia seeds…), filtered water or plant milk and additionaly (this step is optional) a superfood powder (cacao, chlorella, baobab, moringa, acai, camu-camu, maca, amla… more info on this soon). Follow it up with a cup of white, green or better yet matcha tea, always add spices and herbs to your foods and try a new food every week 
As we know we live in a much more toxic world than a few years ago so we need to make sure we are topping our diet with loads of antioxidants to fight those free radicals our cells are exposed to constantly. So the key to have a diet that’ll help you thrive in this world is to up your phytonutrient intake by eating as many varied whole plant-foods as possible! 
Peace, love & good food
STAY tunned, STAY plant-based and STAY healthy! ;)
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