So, what¹s on the menu? What do we mean by intense nutrition? As we have described, bee pollen nutrients do more than just provide calories to burn as fuel. Recently, researchers have begun to study specific nutrients, and, also, classes of nutrients, that have qualitative, or beneficial, effects on the living system‹in other words, nutrients that help the human body optimize its normal functions and promote a state of health. One important activity that researchers focus on is antioxidant activity.

What does antioxidant activity mean? In the body, unstable oxygen molecules, or free radicals, create havoc with the living system. Free radicals are also called Reactive Oxygen Species, and they are created by glitches in the body¹s normal metabolism. They are also created by environmental toxins, smoking, aging, and other destructive mechanisms. The normal lifespan of a free radical is one millionth of a second. That is because they are so unstable that they will very quickly use their biochemical force to stabilize themselves. Free radicals exist only long enough for them to bump into something and capture enough electrons or hydrogen atoms to achieve a stable form. This can be extremely destructive for the unwilling donor. Free radical damage is associated with many degenerative processes of the body, including aging. Examples of free radicals are H2O2 (hydrogen peroxide), CO (carbon monoxide), O (singlet oxygen), O2- (superoxide), and OH (hydroxy molecules). Note that all of these molecules contain oxygen molecules. The problem is that these molecules are chemically unstable ­ antioxidants neutralize these reactive oxygen molecules and make them stable.

Luckily for the body, antioxidants can neutralize free radicals before they can do too much damage to tissues. Antioxidants quench free radicals by efficiently smothering and stabilizing them. They then recharge themselves by interacting with a complex network of other antioxidants.

CC Pollen Co. recently performed ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) testing on High Desert Bee Pollen. This test measures the antioxidant activity that foods exhibit. In the United States, ORAC scores have become a benchmark for determining the antioxidant nutritional quality of foods. In the last several years, blueberries and black raspberries have become famous for their record high ORAC values. You may have read news accounts in the press that berries arebeneficial for anti-aging, as antioxidants. Wild blueberries have scored 61 ORAC units, while black raspberries have scored 164 ORAC units ­ the highest previous score. However, an independent lab found that CC Pollen¹s High Desert® bee pollen has the highest antioxidant activity, by far, of all the whole foods, at a whopping 247 ORAC units. High Desert® Bee Pollen clearly stands alone at the top of the list of whole foods in providing dietary antioxidants.

Most dietary antioxidants are bioflavonoids. High Desert® Bee Pollen contains large amounts of bioflavonoids, and that is why it shows so much antioxidant activity. But besides performing antioxidant duties, scientific studies have shown that bioflavonoids also perform many other important functions in the body.

Certain bioflavonoids increase capillary strength in the body; some benefit the liver. Other bioflavonoids help maintain bone density, and the list goes on and on. The presence of antioxidant bioflavonoids should be considered significant for more than just the antioxidant protection they provide.

Bioflavonoids are a subclass of polyphenols. Polyphenols are a huge class of nutrients that include bioflavonoids, as well as phenolic esters, and organic acids. Their presence is recognized as the most significant measurable factor of a food¹s nutritional power to promote health. For nutritional benefit, polyphenol content is considered even more significant than antioxidant (ORAC) activity. Individual types of polyphenols offer different benefits, just as individual bioflavonoids do. In the U.S. the polyphenol content of a food is considered to be a quantifiable indicator of its nutritious quality. Once again, in the Total Polyphenol assay, performed by the same independent lab, High Desert® Bee Pollen was found to contain the highest polyphenol content of all whole foods.