Health benefits of salicylates (Vitamin S)

OK so apparently now it's not antioxidants that help protect the body from the formation of free-radicals. Recent research has showed no beneficial effects from antioxidants and has led scientists to doubt their effectiveness.

The real powerhouse are salicylates (now named vitamin S) which are found in fresh fruit and vegetable diets. Plants produce salicylates in response to injury or assault by pests therefore the perfect specimens you get in supermarkets seem to be less useful than the sometimes bruised and miss shaped organic ones.

Interestingly though, salicylates are also the active ingredient of the drug aspirin. Now before you go downing loads of bottles of aspirin please remember that it has it's side effects, especially as a cause of internal bleeding. Professor Peter Elwood, who has been researching aspirin for over 30 years, reckons that there should be more research into the risks and benefits of aspirin, and the development of a safer version.

Now surely for health benefits nothing has changed? We used to know that it was healthy to eat fresh organic fruit and vegetables and now with this new discovery... it still is! There's all this research into trying to find out what it is in fresh fruit and vegetables that is so good for us and we still haven't found out. It doesn't matter whether it's the antioxidants or vitamin C or vitamin S, who cares, just carry on eating fresh, whole organic foods and you can't go wrong.

Yes, research is great but let's not get too obsessed with nutrition and what vitamins we should be taking in. Taking too much of anything is bad for you and that includes salicylates and any other supplements. Naturally grown organic food has a way of balancing all these vitamins out and giving us exectly what we need.

To quote Michael Pollan in his book 'In defence of food', "The cook in the kitchen preparing a meal from plants and animals at the end of this shortest of food chains has a great many things to worry about, but 'health' is simply not one of them, because it is given."