What is the ORAC Scale?



The ORAC scale is a measurement of antioxidant power. Knowing about ORAC values is important mainly in deciding which antioxidant supplement has the best cellular antioxidant protection.

The ORAC scale is a unit of measurement of the antioxidant ability of a substance to neutralize harmful free radicals

ORAC scale

in your cells. The ORAC rating is a test developed at the National Institute of Aging in Baltimore, Maryland, USA to measure antioxidant activity and free radicals. ORAC is an acronym for Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity. This scale measures how many radicals a specific food can absorb. The more free radicals a particular food can neutralize, the higher it rates as an antioxidant and the greater its ORAC rating. The ORAC rating has been effectively used to determine what the best antioxidant foods are.

Although experts disagree on the top 10 list of antioxidant foods,even using the ORAC scale, here is the top 10 antioxidant foods as determined by the United States Department of Agriculture:

    1. Black chokeberry
    2. Small red beans (dried)
    3. Wild blueberries
    4. Red kidney beans
    5. Pinto beans
    6. Blueberries
    7. Cranberries
    8. Artichoke hearts
    9. Blackberries
    10. Prunes (dried plums)

Although the ORAC values for particular foods are interesting, knowing specific numbers are not necessary. Instead, eating a variety of deeply colored, fresh plant derived foods, especially beans, fruits and vegetables is all that you need to know in order to consume healthful amount of ORAC units. The key here is variety! Each food has particular nutrients the others lack.

When comparing any type of ORAC value, be careful to make sure that both the units and the foods being compared are similar. For example, a single prune may have a different ORAC value than a plum. Actually, though they both have the same antioxidant capacity, prunes appear to have a higher ORAC value per serving than the same dry weight of fresh plums due to the lack of water in its fresh counterpart.

ORAC scores of Antioxidant Products

Some people want to enhance their wellness by going a step further to get their antioxidants. Taking a daily antioxidant supplement is an excellent idea to further safeguard your wellness and slow down the aging process.

Knowing a bit about the ORAC scale, manufactures of all types of antioxidant supplements have used this knowledge as a marketing tool to sell you their particular product.

It is up to you, the consumer, to use your knowledge of the ORAC ranking to make sure you are getting the best supplement for the health of your cells.

When choosing antioxidant supplement, choose the one with the highest ORAC score. Do some research on the different products and compare them. If the company refuses to give you this data, go with another product that does more research.

ORAC Goodness to Chew On

If you would like some delicious and nutritious fruit supplement with a whopping ORAC score of 3000 units per 1/2 teaspoon, then try Organic Freeze Dried Acai Powder. Now you can enjoy all of the goodness of real acai berries which seems to have an ORAC scale that goes off the charts.

What is the ORAC value of Mona Vie?

The above question is a valid one. Mona Vie is an antioxidant juice drink supplement distributed through network marketing. Knowing that Mona Vie or any other expensive antioxidant juice may have a high ORAC rating is not enough for you to part with your hard earned money.

This same question could be asked of any of the highly poplar juice drinks. One of the marketing pitches is that this particular juice has a very high ORAC value compared to other similar, but supposedly inferior antioxidant juice drinks. While it’s not my intention to neither endorse nor disprove this company’s claims, my advice to you before purchasing any type of antioxidant supplement, especially exotic juices, is to thoroughly research the both the ORAC values and even more importantly, how the promoters came to that conclusion.

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