Food Sources
Food Sources
What foods provide flavonoids?
Virtually all fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices contain flavonoids. They are also found in other types of food, including dry beans (where they give red beans,black beans, and speckled beans their color) and grains (where the color provided by flavonoids is usually in the yellow family). Products made from the foods above (for example, wines made from grapes) also typically contain a wide variety of flavonoids.
While the flavonoid family is too complex to report all of its food connections, some highlights are especially important. In the fruit family, it is berries that come out highest in the chemical category of flavonoids called anthocyanins. Black raspberries, for example, may contain up to 100 milligrams of anthocyanins per ounce.
Green tea has flavonoid components called catechins that may reach 1,000 milligrams (or 1 gram) per cup. In general, the more colorful components of the food--like the skins of fruits--contain the highest concentration of flavonoids. However, flavonoids can be both white and green in color, and for this reason may show up in less noticeable ways in food. One example involves the white pulpy inside of oranges. In addition being found in the watery orange-colored sections of this fruit (which contain virtually all of the orange's vitamin C content), the orange's flavonoids can also be found in the white pulpy portion inside the skin and surrounding the sections.