Thanksgiving - a toast to health?

From the main course to dessert, the traditional Thanksgiving meal is stuffed with healthy food choices, particularly those rich in disease-fighting antioxidants, according to a new report from by the American Chemical Society, which looks at recent nutrition research.

The honey in honey-baked ham and turkey does more than offer sweet taste - it may also be good for your heart, claims the report. In a recent study presented at the American Chemical Society's national meeting in Boston, Dr Nicki Engeseth, a chemist with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, reported that honey contains antioxidants that may help protect against heart disease.

Honey also helps prolong the freshness of meat, protects against off flavors, and guards against harmful byproducts of meat oxidation that may increase the risk of heart disease, the researcher said. The range of antioxidants in honey is comparable to that in apples, bananas, oranges and strawberries.

Recently we reported that bread crust is a rich source of cancer-fighting antioxidants and may provide a much stronger health benefit than the rest of the bread - good news for those who like bread stuffing. The discovery of a cancer-fighting compound that is concentrated in the crust was made by German chemist Dr Thomas Hofmann, who reported his findings in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry​.

Cranberries are one the leading sources of antioxidants - the fruit contains the highest quantity of disease-fighting phenols, a type of antioxidant that is thought to reduce the risk of chronic diseases such as cancer, stroke and heart disease, according to chemist Dr Joe Vinson, of the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania. His study comparing the antioxidant level of different fruits was also reported in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry​.

Canned corn is also a disease-fighter. Indeed canned corn may be healthier than corn on the cob, according to a study by Cornell University scientists (Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry​). The researchers reported earlier this year that heat processing of sweet corn significantly raises the level of naturally occurring compounds that help fight disease, including cancer and heart disease.

As for the greens, collard greens, considered a Southern delicacy, are a rich source of lutein - an antioxidant shown in some research to reduce the risk of age-related macular degeneration, a common cause of blindness. The finding that lutein is present in greens is based in part on research by University of Maryland chemist Dr Frederick Khachik, whose work was described in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry​. The disease-fighting antioxidants are also found in abundance in other dark-green, leafy vegetables, including kale and spinach.

And finally, for the dessert. Sweet potato and pumpkin pie are rich in alpha- and beta-carotene, chemical precursors of vitamin A, which is known to promote healthy vision, according to Dr Frederick Khachik, of the University of Maryland. Squash, especially butternut, is also a rich source of beta-carotene. Khachik's work on the beta-carotene content of vegetables has also been published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry​.