 To get up to our daily minimum of 8,000 to 11,000 antioxidant units a day, all we have to do is eat lots of fruits and vegetables, right? Well, let's see. Well, let's say I ate a whole banana for breakfast, in addition to whatever else I ate. Lunch included typical American salad, iceberg lettuce, half cup of cucumber slices, canned peaches for dessert. Supper included a side serving of peas and carrots, half cup of snap peas along with yet another salad, and a cup of watermelon for dessert. I just ate 9 servings of fruits and vegetables, feeling all good about myself, and I only made up to about 2700, less than a quarter of the way to my minimum daily recommended intake. What am I supposed to do? Eat 36 servings a day? Well, what if instead of that banana, I had a single serving of blueberries for breakfast? Whoa, we've got to squish down the scale here. And instead of iceberg lettuce for that afternoon's salad, four leaves of red leaf lettuce. Maybe throw some kidney beans on top? Maybe sprinkle a teaspoon of dried oregano as a bonus? An apple and some dates for a snack? It's not even supper time. I really just did five servings, and I've left the minimum recommended daily intake of antioxidants in the dust. That's why it's not just the quantity of fruits and vegetables that matters, but quality. We should try to choose the healthiest ones. So if we do that, can we now skip fruits and veggies for supper? Never even made it there. Not a good idea. Note these estimated minimum antioxidant needs do not take into account the added amounts needed if other oxidant stressors are present, such as meat consumption if we're sick, cigarette smoke, air pollution, sleep deprivation. Then just to stay out of oxidative debt, we'd have to consume a lot more than the minimum. Remember that cool argon laser study? Their most important finding was the antioxidant levels can plummet within two hours of a stressful event. It takes two hours to lose, but can take up to three days to get our levels back up again. So the take-home message is that, especially when we're sick, stressed, or tired, to go above and beyond the minimum 8,000 to 11,000. Ideally, we need to be soaking our bloodstream with antioxidants, which means high-powered fruits and vegetables at every meal, like berries or beans, and sipping something like green tea or hibiscus all day long.