Plants make antioxidants so we don’t have to. Since antioxidant-rich foods traditionally formed such a major part of our ancestral diet, we didn’t have to evolve that great of an antioxidant system. We could just let the plants in our diet pull some of the weight, like giving us vitamin C so we didn’t have to be bothered to make it ourselves.1524 Using plants as a crutch may well have relieved the pressure for further evolutionary development of our own defenses. So, we became dependent on getting massive quantities of plant foods in our diet, and, when we don’t, we may suffer adverse health
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