Oranges
Apart from the obvious of being juicy and sweet, oranges have a number of healthy benefits – primarily their high Vitamin C concentration. Just one orange supplies over 100% of your daily requirement of vitamin C.
Vitamin C is a water-soluble vitamin – the main one. It is a powerful anti-oxidant that makes war on the free radicals that damage your cells. Free radicals will also cause cholesterol to oxidise, allowing it to stick to the walls of arteries. Vitamin C may prevent this and has been shown to help lower cholesterol.
Vitamin C is also vitally important for our immune system – particularly as we get older and it is this vitamin, more than any other, that has become associated with reduced risk of heart disease, strokes and most cancers.
Along with apple juice and grapefruit juice – drinking orange juice may help prevent kidney stones from forming as it increases urinary pH value and citric acid excretion which is necessary to prevent the forming of calcium deposits that become kidney stones.
Apart from vitamin C, oranges also contain folic acid, potassium as well as calcium and magnesium.
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