antioxidants :

Antioxidants are phytochemicals, vitamins and other nutrients that protect our cells from damage caused by free radicals. In vitro en in vivo studies have shown that antioxidants help prevent the free radical damage that is associated with cancer and heart disease. Antioxidants can be found in most fruits and vegetables but also culinary herbs and medicinal herbs can contain high levels of antioxidants. Dragland S and colleagues showed in their study entitled "Several Culinary and Medicinal Herbs are Important Sources of Dietary Antioxidants", and published in the Journal of Nutrition (2003 May) that the antioxidant level of herbs can be as high as 465 mmol per 100 g.
A study in 2006 by Thompson HJ showed that a botanical diversityof fruits and vegetables plays a role in the biological effect of antioxidant phytochemicals. The consumption of smaller quantities of many phytochemicals may result in more health benefits than the consumption of larger quantities of fewer phytochemicals.