Boost antioxidants

Add avocado to your salad. Vegetables have an unexpected downside: Many of them are virtually fat free, and you need fat in the meal to absorb cancer-fighting carotenoids.

Snack on dried figs. Dried fruits are known to be rich in antioxidants - but some of the less popular types are the most nutritious. Figs and dried plums had the best overall nutrient scores, shows recent research at the University of Scranton. A handful of dried figs (about one and a half ounce) increased "antioxidant capacity" - the ability to neutralise free radicals - by nine percent. That's more than double the increase seen after a cup of green tea.

Eat a fruit salad. Antioxidants love company: A mixture of oranges, apples, grapes, and blueberries provides five times the antioxidant power you get from eating the same fruits solo, says recent research by Liu, at Cornell. Ingredients to toss into fruit salad, ranked in order of phenolic content (a type of plant chemical that cuts the risk of chronic disease): cranberries, apples, red grapes, strawberries, pineapples, bananas, peaches, oranges, and pears.



Protect your stomach from bugs

Turn down your fridge. If the setting is over 40∞F, your food is sitting in the danger zone - the temperature at which bacteria begin to multiply.