21 Most Beneficial Polyphenols & What Foods Have Them
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We often write about polyphenols here at 10almonds; sometimes mentioning that a certain food is good because it has them, or else occasionally an entire article about a particular polyphenol. But what about a birds-eye view of polyphenols as a whole?
Well, there are many, but we’ve picked 21 particularly beneficial for human health, and what foods contain them.
We’ll be working from this fantastic database, by the way:
❝Phenol-Explorer is the first comprehensive database on polyphenol content in foods. The database contains more than 35,000 content values for 500 different polyphenols in over 400 foods. These data are derived from the systematic collection of more than 60,000 original content values found in more than 1,300 scientific publications. Each of these publications has been critically evaluated before inclusion in the database. The whole data on the polyphenol composition of foods is available for download.❞
Source: Phenol-Explorer.EU | Database on polyphenol content in foods
We use this database at least several times per week while writing 10almonds; it’s a truly invaluable resource!
However, 500 is a lot, so here’s a rundown of 21 especially impactful ones; we’ve sorted them per the categories used in the explorer, and in some cases we’ve aggregated several very similar polyphenols typically found together in the same foods, into one item (so for example we just list “quercetin” instead of quercetin 3-O-rutinoside + quercetin 4′-O-glucoside + quercetin 3,4′-O-diglucoside, etc etc). We’ve also broadly grouped some particularly populous ones such as “anthocyanins”, “catechins”, and so forth.
Without further ado, here’s what you ideally want to be getting plenty of in your diet:
Flavonoids
- Quercetin
- Foods: onions, apples, berries, kale, broccoli, capers.
- Benefits: anti-inflammatory, reduces allergy symptoms, supports heart and brain health, and may lower blood pressure.
- See also: Fight Inflammation & Protect Your Brain, With Quercetin
- Kaempferol
- Foods: spinach, kale, tea (green and black), capers, brussels sprouts.
- Benefits: antioxidant, may reduce the risk of cancer, supports cardiovascular health, and has anti-inflammatory properties.
- Epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG)
- Foods: green tea, matcha.
- Benefits: potent antioxidant, promotes weight loss, supports brain health, and may reduce the risk of heart disease.
- Anthocyanins
- Foods: blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, red cabbage, cherries.
- Benefits: improve brain health, support eye health, and reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases.
- Apigenin
- Foods: parsley, celery, chamomile tea.
- Benefits: anti-inflammatory, reduces anxiety, and supports brain and immune system health.
- Luteolin
- Foods: peppers, thyme, celery, carrots.
- Benefits: anti-inflammatory, supports brain health, and may help reduce the growth of cancer cells.
- Catechins (aside from EGCG)
- Foods: green tea, dark chocolate, apples
- Benefits: boosts metabolism, supports cardiovascular health, and reduces oxidative stress.
- Hesperidin
- Foods: oranges, lemons, limes, grapefruits.
- Benefits: supports vascular health, reduces inflammation, and may help manage diabetes.
- Naringenin
- Foods: oranges, grapefruits, tomatoes.
- Benefits: antioxidant, supports liver health, and may improve cholesterol levels.
For more on epigallocatechin gallate and other catechins, see: Which Tea Is Best, By Science?
Phenolic Acids
- Chlorogenic acid
- Foods: coffee, artichokes, apples, pears.
- Benefits: supports weight management, improves blood sugar regulation, and reduces inflammation.
- See also: Green Coffee Bean Extract: Coffee Benefits Without The Coffee?
- Caffeic acid
- Foods: coffee, thyme, sage, basil.
- Benefits: antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and supports skin health.
- See also: The Bitter Truth About Coffee (or is it?)
- Ferulic acid
- Foods: whole grains, rice bran, oats, flaxseeds, spinach.
- Benefits: protects skin from UV damage, reduces inflammation, and supports cardiovascular health.
- Gallic acid
- Foods: green tea, grapes, berries, walnuts.
- Benefits: antioxidant, may reduce the risk of cancer, and supports brain health.
Stilbenes
- Resveratrol
- Foods: red grapes, blueberries, peanuts.
- Benefits: anti-aging properties, supports heart health, and reduces inflammation.
- See also: Resveratrol & Healthy Aging ← and no, you can’t usefully get it from red wine; here’s why!
Lignans
- Secoisolariciresinol
- Foods: flaxseeds, sesame seeds, whole grains.
- Benefits: supports hormone balance, reduces the risk of hormone-related cancers, and promotes gut health.
- Matairesinol
- Foods: rye, oats, barley, sesame seeds.
- Benefits: hormonal support, antioxidant, and may reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases.
See also: Sprout Your Seeds, Grains, Beans, Etc ← for maximum nutritional availability!
Tannins
- Ellagic acid
- Foods: pomegranates, raspberries, walnuts.
- Benefits: anti-cancer properties, supports skin health, and reduces inflammation.
- Proanthocyanidins
- Foods: cranberries, apples, grapes, dark chocolate.
- Benefits: supports urinary tract health, reduces inflammation, and improves blood vessel health.
See also: Enjoy Bitter Foods For Your Heart & Brain
Curcuminoids
- Curcumin
- Foods: turmeric.
- Benefits: potent anti-inflammatory, supports joint health, and may reduce the risk of chronic diseases.
- See also: Why Curcumin (Turmeric) Is Worth Its Weight In Gold
Isoflavones
- Genistein
- Foods: soybeans, chickpeas.
- Benefits: supports bone health, reduces the risk of hormone-related cancers, and promotes heart health.
- Daidzein
- Foods: soybeans, legumes.
- Benefits: hormonal balance, supports bone health, and may help alleviate menopausal symptoms.
See also: What Does “Balance Your Hormones” Even Mean?
Well, that’s a lot of things to remember!
If you want to make it easier for yourself, you can simply make sure to get at least 30 different kinds of plant into your diet per week, and by doing so, statistically, you should cover most of these!
Read more: What’s Your Plant Diversity Score?
Alternatively, for a middle-ground approach of targetting 16 most polyphenol delivering foods, check out this super-dense arrangement:
Mediterranean Diet… In A Pill? ← it’s about plant extracts from 16 specific foods, and the polyphenols they deliver
Enjoy!
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Building Psychological Resilience (Without Undue Hardship)
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
What’s The Worst That Could Happen?
When we talk about the five lifestyle factors that make the biggest difference to health, stress management would be a worthy addition as number six. We haven’t focused explicitly on that for a while, so let’s get ready to start the New Year on a good footing…
You’re not going to have a stress-free 2024
What a tender world that would be! Hopefully your stressors will be small and manageable, but rest assured, things will stress you.
And that’s key: “rest assured”. Know it now, prepare for it, and build resilience.
Sounds grim, doesn’t it? It doesn’t have to be, though.
When the forecast weather is cold and wet, you’re not afraid of it when you have a warm dry house. When the heating bill comes for that warm dry house, you’re not afraid of it when you have money to pay it. If you didn’t have the money and the warm dry house, the cold wet weather could be devastating to you.
The lesson here is: we can generally handle what we’re prepared for.
Negative visualization and the PNS
This is the opposite of what a lot of “think and grow rich”-style gurus would advise. And indeed, it’s not helpful to slide into anxious worrying.
If you do find yourself spiralling, here’s a tool for getting out of that spiral:
RAIN: an intervention for dealing with difficult emotions
For now, however, we’re going to practice Radical Acceptance.
First, some biology: you may be aware that your Central Nervous System (CNS) branches into the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) and the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS).
The PNS is the part that cues our body to relax, and suppresses our fight/flight response. We’re going to activate it.
Activating the PNS is easy for most people in comfortable circumstances (e.g., you are not currently exposed to stressful stimuli). It may well be activated already, and if it’s not, a few deep breaths is usually all it takes.
If you’d like a quick and easy Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) technique, here you go:
No-Frills, Evidence-Based Mindfulness
Activating the PNS is hard for most people in difficult circumstances (e.g., you either are currently exposed to stressful stimuli, or you are in one of the emotional spirals we discussed earlier).
However, we can trick our bodies and brains by—when we are safe and unstressed—practicing imagining those stressful stimuli. Taking a moment to not just imagine it experientially, but immersively. This, in CBT and DBT, is the modern equivalent to the old samurai who simply accepted, before battle, that they were already dead—and thus went into battle with zero fear of death.
A less drastic example is the zen master who had a favorite teacup, and feared it would get broken. So he would tell himself “the cup is already broken”. One day, it actually broke, and he simply smiled ruefully and said “Of course”.
How this ties together: practice the mindfulness-based stress reduction we linked above, while imagining the things that do/would stress you the most.
Since it’s just imagination, this is a little easier than when the thing is actually happening. Practicing this way means that when and if the thing actually happens (an unfortunate diagnosis, a financial reversal, whatever it may be), our CNS is already well-trained to respond to stress with a dose of PNS-induced calm.
You can also leverage hormesis, a beneficial aspect of (in this case, optional and chosen by you) acute stress:
Dr. Elissa Epel | The Stress Prescription
Psychological resilience training
This (learned!) ability to respond to stress in an adaptive fashion (without maladaptive coping strategies such as unhelpful behavioral reactivity and/or substance use) is a key part of what in psychology is called resilience:
And yes, the CBT/DBT/MBSR methods we’ve been giving you are the evidence-based gold standard.
Only the best for 10almonds subscribers! 😎
❝That was helpful, but not cheery; can we finish the year on a cheerier note?❞
We can indeed:
How To Get Your Brain On A More Positive Track (Without Toxic Positivity)
Take care!
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Women’s Strength Training Anatomy – by Frédéric Delavier
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
Fitness guides for women tend to differ from fitness guides for men, in the wrong ways:
“Do some squats and jumping jacks, and here’s a exercise for your abs; you too can look like our model here”
In those other books we are left wonder: where’s the underlying information? Where are the explanations that aren’t condescending? Where, dare we ask, is the understanding that a woman might ever lift something heavier than a baby?
Delavier, in contrast, delivers. With 130 pages of detailed anatomical diagrams for all kinds of exercises to genuinely craft your body the way you want it for you. Bigger here, smaller there, functional strength, you decide.
And rest assured: no, you won’t end up looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger unless you not only eat like him, but also have his genes (and possibly his, uh, “supplement” regime).
What you will get though, is a deep understanding of how to tailor your exercise routine to actually deliver the personalized and specific results that you want.
Pick Up Today’s Book on Amazon!
Not looking for a feminine figure? You may like the same author’s book for men:
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In Praise Of Walking – by Dr. Shane O’Mara
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
At 10almonds we talk often of the health benefits of walking, so what’s new here?
As the subtitle suggests: a new scientific exploration!
Dr. Shane O’Mara is a professor of experimental brain research—and a keen walker. Combining his profession and his passion, he offers us a uniquely well-grounded perspective.
While the writing style is very readable, there’s a lot of science referenced here, with many studies cited. We love that!
We begin our journey by learning what we have in common with sea squirts, and what we have different from all other apes. What we can learn from other humans, from toddlers to supercentenarians.
As one might expect from a professor of experimental brain research, we learn a lot more about what walking does for our brain, than for the rest of our body. We’ve previously talked about walking and cardiovascular health, and brown adipose tissue, and benefits to the immune system, but this book remains steadfastly focused on the brain.
Which just goes to show, what a lot there is to say for the science-based benefits to our brain health, both neurologically and psychologically!
One of the things at which Dr. O’Mara excels that this reviewer hasn’t seen someone do so well before, is neatly tie together the appropriate “why” and “how” to each “what” of the brain-benefits of walking. Not just that walking boosts mood or creativity or problem-solving, say, but why and how it does so.
Often, understanding that can be the difference between being motivated to actually do it or not!
Bottom line: if there’s a book that’ll get you lacing up your walking shoes, this’ll be the one.
Click here to check out “In Praise of Walking” on Amazon, and start reaping the benefits!
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The New Menopause – by Dr. Mary Claire Haver
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
The author is most famous for “The Galveston Diet”, which book is astonishingly similar in its content, chapters, format, etc to Nikki Williams’ “It’s Not You, It’s Your Hormones” which came out a few years previously but didn’t get the same marketing.
Nonetheless, this time Dr. Haver has something new to add, and we think it’s worth a read.
The general theme of this book is a comprehensive overview of the menopause, experientially (subjective to the person going through it) and empirically (by science), from start to finish and beyond. This book’s more about human physiology, and less about diet than the previous.
Dr. Haver also discusses in-depth how estrogen is thought of as a sex hormone (and it is), to the point that people consider it perhaps expendable, and forget (or are simply unaware) that we have estrogen receptors throughout our bodies and estrogen is vital for maintaining many other bodily functions, including your heart, cognitive function, bone integrity, blood sugar balance, and more.
(in case you’re wondering “why don’t men fall to bits, then?”, don’t worry, their testosterone does these things for them. Testosterone is orders of magnitude less potent than estrogen, mg for mg, so they need a lot more of it, but under good conditions they produce plenty so it’s fine)
But, the amount of testosterone available to peri/postmenopausal women is simply not enough to do that job (and it’d also result in a transition of secondary sex characteristics, which for most people would be very unwanted), so, something else needs to be done.
Dr. Haver also discusses in detail the benefits and risks of HRT and how to get/manage them, respectively, with the latest up-to-date research (at time of going to print; the book was published in April 2024).
Bottom line: if you want to know what’s going on with your peri- or post-menopausal body and how it could be better (or if you want to know what’s going on with someone else approaching/experiencing menopause), then this is a top-tier book.
Click here to check out The New Menopause, and know what’s going on and what to do about it!
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The Power of When – by Dr. Michael Breus
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
There’s a lot more to one’s circadian rhythm than just when one wakes and sleeps. This book goes into that quite deeply!
For example, those items in the subtitle? You could do them all at the same time, but it probably wouldn’t be optimal (although honestly, that does sound like quite a good life!). Rather, there are distinct times of day that we’re going to be better at certain things, and there are distinct times of day when certain things are going to be better for us.
Of course, some items are not so simple as a one-size fits all, so Dr. Breus outlines for us how to figure out our own chronotype (within four main schemas), and how to make that work for us as well as possible.
They style is easy-reading pop-science, with frequent summaries, bullet-points, quizzes, and so forth, making it easy to understand, learn, and apply.
Bottom line: if you feel like your sleep could use a do-over, then this book can help you get it into order—and the rest of your daily activities too!
Click here to check out The Power of When, and optimize your health!
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What is HRT? HRT and Hormones Explained
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
In this short video, Dr. Sophie Newton explains how menopausal HRT, sometimes called just MHT, is the use of exogenous (didn’t come from your body) to replace/supplement the endogenous hormones (made in your body) that aren’t being made in the quantities that would result in ideal health.
Bioidentical hormones are, as the name suggests, chemically identical to those made in the body; there is no difference, all the way down to the atomic structure.
People are understandably wary of “putting chemicals into the body”, but in fact, everything is a chemical and those chemicals are also found in your body, just not in the numbers that we might always like.
In the case of hormones, these chemical messengers are simply there to tell cells what to do, so having the correct amount of hormones ensures that all the cells that need to get a certain message, get it.
In the case of estrogen specifically, while it’s considered a sex hormone (and it is), it’s responsible for a lot more than just the reproductive system, which is why many people without correct estrogen levels (such as peri- or post-menopause, though incorrect levels can happen earlier in life for other reasons too) can severely feel their absence in a whole stack of ways.
What ways? More than we can list here, but some are discussed in the video:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to know more?
You might like our previous main features:
- What Does “Balance Your Hormones” Even Mean?
- What You Should Have Been Told About The Menopause Beforehand
- Menopausal HRT: Bioidentical vs Animal
Take care!
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Learn to Age Gracefully
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