Is Fresh Really The Best?

By Bryon Zirker

Whenever you add spices and herbs to your food your are
actually doing yourself a nice healthy favor. Research as of
late has shown that herbs and spices are loaded with tons
of disease fighting and age slowing nutrients than the actual
foods that we put them on. Here is some data about powering
up flavor and increasing the antioxidants in your food maybe
ten times.

Ok here goes-----Use dried herbs! What you say!

Yes, Oxygen Radical Absorbency Capacity (ORAC) score
which ranks all kinds foods regarding the ability they have
in neutralizing free radicals. Hey this just in, blueberries
(OH ya Blueberries baby) are extremely rich in antioxidants,
and blueberries rank 6,552 on the ORAC scale. Interestingly
they can't touch the antioxidants found in common herbs
like basil and oregano which are even higher.

Lets stack this up shall we:

The ORAC Score of Oregano

13,970 (fresh)
200,129 (dried)

The ORAC Score of Basil

4,805 (fresh) 67,553 (dried) So as you see here fresh is not
always best. Dried is sometimes way better.

When you buy those great organic dried herbs and spices
make sure you store them in opaque jars.Keep them away
from light and heat (this means do not put them above your
stove or oven). Make sure to use them regularly and replace
every six months or so. Flavor and Free-radical fights, a
great combination.