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Make no mistake, the world as we know it today is not in the best shape. The surrounding environment, from air to food to water to everything we touch, is certainly far from perfect. Since they say the environment is everything when it comes to looking after our mental and physical health, often we wonder how much healthier we’d be if we could just whisk ourselves away to a calmer, less polluted world.

But, like it or not, our world is the only one we’ve got. Without stepping into a time machine or moving in with some penguins and polar bears in Antarctica, there is simply no way to escape the health hazards of our planet. They’re all there, in everything around us. Yes, even the most healthy organic vegetables have unwanted compounds, and the wildest sections of first-growth forests still have air pollution.

We can’t avoid it; the world’s imperfections will eventually reach our bodies, some way or another. And the body knows this, so over the long course of human evolution, our body has built up a fairly strong defense system against the pollutants and toxins it encounters. Much like how the body is able to fight off 99% of unwanted bacteria and viruses without you even noticing, the body is also pretty darn good at protecting itself from toxins and getting rid of the ones that do manage to sneak in. Let’s take a look at the power of antioxidants!

Antioxidants form the body’s second line of defense, after the physical barrier that the skin provides, against inorganic toxins and unwanted compounds that enter the body. Collectively known as “free radicals,” if these toxins manage to sneak into the body (and news flash, they do), it’s now up to your body’s antioxidants to catch them and get them out of your bloodstream. In the same way that blood cells are the knights of the immune system, riding through the bloodstream to catch bacteria and viruses, antioxidants do the same in their mission of catching free radicals.

But unlike white blood cells, antioxidants are not living cells that reproduce within the bone marrow, but inorganic chemical compounds that your body ingests not unlike nutrients and vitamins. They’re not something your body can just produce and replenish on command; you need to make sure that you’re putting enough in your body, and your body is able to make use of them. And it goes without saying that, in today’s polluted and less-than-healthy world, this is more important than ever.

Maybe back in the day, the body could keep a healthy supply of antioxidants through the trace antioxidant compounds found in the food we ate every day, but that was back when the pollution in the air, soil, water, and beyond was orders of magnitude lower than what it is today. And of course, that’s not to mention that the food we’re consuming now tends to be much less rich in vitamins, nutrients, and yep, you guessed it, antioxidants than it should be.

With a quick Google search, you can find some common sources of dietary antioxidants. Fresh fruits and vegetables, plant-based oils, eggs, and seafood are common ones. But we’re going to sound like a broken record here and say this: They're just not as good as they used to be. The sea isn’t as full of nutrients as it used to be, and thus neither are the fish and seafood we eat. Earth’s soil has been getting progressively more and more nutrient-deprived over the past decades due to overfarming, so there are far fewer antioxidants in the fruits and vegetables we consume. All at a time when our bodies need more antioxidants, not less!

So what are some ways we can get some extra little bits of antioxidants into our bodies? Let’s look at two less-commonly discussed options!

A Little-Known Source of Antioxidants You’ve (Probably) Never Heard of!

I know we said earlier that antioxidants don’t grow and reproduce in the body the way that cells do, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t some organic compounds and hormones created by the body that contain antioxidants. And antioxidants within these organic compounds are particularly powerful and easy for your body to access because, well, they come from the body itself!

One of the body’s most potent sources of self-produced antioxidants is the hormone melatonin. Produced every day in the body’s pineal gland, melatonin performs numerous essential functions in the body, including, among other things, helping regulate the body’s circadian rhythm and sleep cycle. And it also happens to contain a ton of powerful antioxidants that can enter your blood stream and go to work almost immediately!

But if the body produces melatonin naturally, how can one just pop in a bit more? It’s not exactly something you can buy at the store. While there are tons of melatonin supplements available on the market (many of which are very questionable), there is nothing as pure and raw as…well, melatonin itself! And while you can’t buy it at the store or the pharmacy, you can buy melatonin in its pure form from PureBulk.

PureBulk’s melatonin supplement, much like the other supplements they offer, is the real thing. Nothing more, nothing less. Just melatonin, the same stuff that’s made in your pineal gland, delivered in powdered form to be taken orally. And there’s nothing else in that powder—no additives, fillers, or even any other ‘active’ ingredients. Because who needs that? What you’re looking for is melatonin, after all!

You can get PureBulk’s melatonin supplement either as raw powder or in capsule form. The 100 mg capsule consists of nothing more than a carefully-measured amount of raw melatonin powder encased in either a gelatin or vegetarian capsule ,for ease of ingestion. For the most flexibility, we recommend the powdered form as you can get creative with it. If you’re into juicing, mix it with some fresh fruits and vegetables for a powerful dose of antioxidants! But for this you’ll need a milligram scale, such as the Gemini-20,  as you want to carefully measure how much you’re ingesting…melatonin is powerful stuff, after all.

It is important to not overuse this supplement, as given melatonin’s primary function of aiding the body’s circadian rhythm, you don’t want to upset this. Having a little can only improve things, but taking too much can lead to unwanted drowsiness at times.

And what’s more, PureBulk’s melatonin supplement is about the cheapest source of antioxidants that you’ll ever find! A small bag of the raw powder costs less than 8 bucks, and given how powerful this stuff is, it could last you over a year even on the maximum recommended daily intake!

Antioxidants From the Deep Wild of Siberia

You’ve probably read about the common animal-based sources of antioxidants (eggs, fish), plant-based sources (berries, greens), and now you know about the antioxidant compounds that come from within your own body. But what else is there? What can we consume that isn’t from a plant, nor an animal?

What about a fungus? Mushrooms, that is! Though many of us mistakenly classify mushrooms as plants or vegetables, this is very incorrect. Mushrooms are a fungus, which is as far away from being a plant as a giraffe is. And there are about as many types of mushrooms and fungi out there as there are plants, with some being as different from each other health-wise as kale is from a potato. But just like with vegetables, there are some that can do absolute wonders for your health and antioxidant intake, though unless you’re a mycologist (yes, that’s the actual word for a mushroom scientist), you probably don’t know much about the difference between one mushroom and another.

But we’ve done our research, and while the best ones sure aren’t easy to find, they are out there. One mushroom in particular, the chaga mushroom, which is native to Siberia, has been known by the indigenous people of the area for centuries as a health and immune system booster. More recently, modern scientific studies have confirmed what the natives have long known, that the chaga mushroom contains an incredibly potent amount of antioxidants.

Though you probably can’t find chaga mushrooms at your local health food store (and if you could, they’d be very expensive), you can still snag a pack of PureBulk’s Chaga Mushroom Extract 4:1 online at a very affordable price!

Just like their melatonin supplement, the Chaga Mushroom Extract is the real thing. It is a high quality product, and one of PureBulk’s top sellers. And you can pick it up in both capsule and powdered form, though for this one, we’d definitely recommend the powdered form for a more raw experience.

And you can really get creative! Try doing what the natives of Siberia have done for hundreds of years to keep their bodies going through the harsh Siberian winter, and brew some chaga mushroom tea! For just about $20, you can get a bag of this potent powder, sourced from the far reaches of our planet, that’ll last you almost a year.

The world might not be perfect, but fortunately, with just a little help, we can activate our body’s powerful and well-evolved defense system. But there’s no avoiding it; every day that you don’t take any action, more and more toxins will inevitably enter your body. The sooner you act, the better!

* In partnership with our friends at PureBulk, Inc.* Photo courtesy of PureBulk, Inc.
* These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
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