Everyone wants to age gracefully. Some do it for different reasons but we can all agree that at the core we want to feel good and live a quality life — this is easier for most to do when they’re happy with what they look like.

Aside from external looks, graceful aging includes the shape of our organs, ligements, joints, bones, teeth and well…everything. If these systems age quickly, you’ll not just see it on your face, you’ll feel it.

I’m not sure about you, but I love nature way too much to wake up each day feeling stiff and rigid. I don’t want anything to hold me back from living life at 110%, especially my own body.

So how do we do this? This is the age-old question, how do we keep young? Aside from staying young at heart, there is actually much we can do to create a lifestyle, which preserves our youth.

In the holistic health world, we look at a few different components to do this:

  • Diet and Nutrition
  • Exercise
  • Sleep (including rest time)
  • REALationships
  • Overall stress (finance, romantic, sex, physical, nutritional, digestion, etc.)
  • Contribution/Service (career, job, etc.)
  • Playtime (how you have fun each day)
  • Spiritual development

Though each of these is interconnected, perhaps the most profound is of course still diet. That is because over the rest (aside from spiritual development perhaps), food is most capabale of influencing our gut-biome and hormones.

At the core of our physicality, what determines up to 80% of our body — how we look and feel — comes down to what we eat. And essentially, that is playing the big role in how our gut bacteria and hormonal system function.

In short, eating the right foods can definitely keep you young. But you have to know what you’re doing!

Out of all the foods one could eat, from all of the dietary dogma, fads and saturated information there remains one king food, vegetables. These wonderful super foods have many, many benefits. One of the most beneficial components are what known as polyphenols.

They are the most abundant antioxidants one could have in their diet. It’s not fruit, magical super berries or even coffee alone. It is what’s in them that makes it count. Overall, vegetables have more polyphenol content than fruit. Next to brightly colored vegetables the other foods highest in polyphenols are cacao and coffee.

Benefits of polyphenols:

  • Improve intestinal flora (grow good bacteria)
  • Lower blood pressure.
  • Decreased levels of triglycerides and total cholesterol.
  • Lower bio-markers of inflammation (total C-reactive proteins).

What Is A Polyphenol?

Polyphenols are the most abundant antioxidants found in any food. They do a number of things, most importantly, boosting friendly intestinal bacteria. Polyphenols have also been known to lower blood pressure, decreased cholesterol, and lower levels of triglycerides to reduce the risk of heart disease and type II diabetes.

Above all, polyphenols will attribute to a healthy, vigorous and youthful body.

Perhaps the most important role polyphenols play their ability to positively effect our intestinal flora. They are prebiotic foods, which means when ingested, they generate a healthy breeding ground for probiotics to proliferate.

In other words, they are ideal food for the healthy bacteria in our guts. Which is incredibly important to know if you are interested in staying forever young. Probiotics are the cornerstone of our immunity. They protect us from all types of aging, digest our food, and essential do everything!

When our gut is healthy, we are healthy. Plain and simple.

How to Get More Polyphenols In Your Diet

So none of this information will do you any good without application. Here are the most polyphenol rich foods there are. Seek them out, make great recipes with them and eat them daily for graceful aging!

  • Fermented vegetables. Cabbage — especially purple cabbage — contain tons of polyphenols. If you like sauerkraut then don’t stop with just cabbage, with a starter culture you can fermented a huge array of vegetables. Try adding broccoli, cauliflower, kale, carrots, dakion, and even seaweed to your list of cultured vegetables. The more colorful the more polyphenols!
  • Try tea. Most people are aware that tea is healthy for you but perhaps not sure why. Green tea is packed with polyphenols that feed healthy gut flora. My personal favorite is Gynostemma. It has much less caffeine, is sweet and actually heals the adrenals. It’s known as the most powerful adrenal adaptogen in the world.
  • Vitality SuperGreen. This is hands down my favorite greens powder. It’s delicious and unlike most it’s fermented. Which not only provides healthy bacteria but makes the powder mix so well! It’s also a rare formula designed with a variety of fermented polyphenol-rich foods to feed the good bacteria.
  • Berries. These are the best fruits as they are lowest in sugar and highest in antioxidants. Any berry will do; however, I highly advise foraging your own wild berries! It’s easy to do and they are abundant in nature. Also try pomegranate, cranberry, and black currant. Even better, ferment them! My most recent activity in the kitchen is making a variety of kefir sodas. I’ll be posting a video on this soon! This removes the sugar and increasing the nutritional quality ten-fold.
  • Cacao. Yup, chocolate is full of polyphenols too. Adding a few tablespoons of raw cacao (not processed chocolate) can promote the growth of gut bacteria that help you maintain ideal weight. For both coffee and cacao you want to choose wisely. These aren’t for everyone. People with bad adrenal issues should avoid stimulants and instead improve their sleep patterns. If this is you, stick to the veggies. The Vitality SuperGreen is especially great for those with adrenal fatigue because it has adaptogens! For the cacao, be sure to get mold-free and raw. A lot of raw, organic cacao isn’t actually organic. They test incredibly high for molds and fungus. I actually witnessed this first hand working in Europe for a cacao sourcing company. The best cacao will be found in Europe. I use Bulletproof and find it to be completely problem free. And it’s delicious! The brain high is wonderfully clean as well.
  • Coffee. Like cacao, coffee needs to be picked carefully. Bad coffee is bad, good coffee can turn back the clocks! It is perhaps the most abundant antioxidant source in the world too. Do your research, Bulletproof has incredible science-based research on this. Or even better, just try it for yourself. I wasn’t a coffee fan ever until I just went for it. Personally, it’s taken away the last big of sugar craving I had, improved my cognative function like none other (I can write a 2,000 word article in 15 minutes…) and even my skin has improved (likely due to my hormones being hijacked and digestion improving beyond what I knew possible). When you eliminate the bad of coffee you are left with a true superfood. Definitely try your coffee Bulletproof style. By adding the right fats you will no longer crave sugar, have a super brain, endless energy, and even balance weight and build muscle. Just try it.

For your health! 

Categories: Lifestyle, Nutrition