Everybody keeps talking about the benefits of red wine. The antioxidant in the wine, resveratrol, does amazing things for us. Benefits-of-resveratrol.com lists increased endurance, longer life, more focus, prevention of Alzheimer's, cessation of flu cell reproduction, reduced chance for disease, death of cancer cells.
What really caught my attention was when I heard Dr. Richard Becker, host of Your Health, say that resveratrol was able to reverse hardening of the arteries. I thought he said it would actually clean out your arteries. I keep looking to watch that episode again to make sure that I heard him right.
I thought grape juice would have the same benefits as red wine, until I found out where the grape holds it's goodness. Mayoclinic.com says these antioxidants are found mainly in the skin, stem, leaf and seeds of the grapes, rather than their pulp. Wine is fermented with the whole grape for an extended period of time.
Your grape juice needs to be made with the whole grape, and allowed to 'steep' long enough to absorb the antioxidants.
Welch's uses the whole grape, but I found no information about how long the juice or wine needs to absorb. Some, like Old Orchard, add resveratrol to their bottled juice, but not their frozen concentrate.
Berries and grapes are good sources, but blueberries, raspberries and mulberries are some of the best. Also boiled peanuts with the skins. The skin is the key.
One other important thing I learned was that the resveratrol is significantly decreased when cooked or heated. Go ahead and eat your jelly, just don't expect it to improve your health.
There's also the option of getting it in a pill. Resveratrolbenefits.com has a chart that shows performance reviews of different supplements, if you want to go that route.
I figure I need to eat anyway. Why not incorporate into my diet foods which have great health benefits. I like to buy the frozen juice because it's easy to have plenty on hand. I like that Welch's is made with whole concord grapes - skins, seeds and all - and contains no added sugar, color, or flavor. That's what I would buy, but my grocery store doesn't even carry it. They only have grape juice cocktail. I'm really not wanting the added sugar and corn syrup. So I'll probably eat more fresh fruit and keep looking for other good sources.
