For top disease-fighting power, eat all of these amazing edibles together with other healthful foods that didn't make my top 10 list, including green tea, chocolate, alcohol (in limited quantities), olive oil, and soy. Beyond the choices I listed here, fruits and vegetables in general are powerhouses of fiber, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. By eating five or more servings a day, you help protect your body from heart disease, cancer, and other diseases. The real key to preventing disease and promoting health is not certain foods, but a lifestyle of regular physical activity and healthy eating.

Step 1:
1. Beets Beet vegetable is one of the best sources of both folate and betaine. These two nutrients work together to lower your blood levels of homocysteine, an inflammatory compound that can damage your arteries and increase your risk of heart disease. Plus, the natural pigments -- called betacyanins -- that give beets their color have been proved to be potent cancer fighters in laboratory mice. How to eat them: Fresh and raw, not from a jar. Heating beets actually decreases their antioxidant power.

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2. Cabbage One cup of chopped cabbage has just 22 calories, and it's loaded with valuable nutrients. At the top of the list is sulforaphane, a chemical that increases your body's production of enzymes that disarm cell-damaging free radicals and reduce your risk of cancer. Sulforaphane boosts your levels of these cancer-fighting enzymes higher than any other plant chemical.

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3. Guava Guava has a higher concentration of lycopene -- an antioxidant that fights prostate cancer -- than any other plant food, including tomatoes and watermelon. In addition, 1 cup of the stuff provides 688 milligrams (mg) of potassium, which is 63 percent more than you'll find in a medium banana. And guava may be the ultimate high-fiber food: There's almost 9 grams (g) of fiber in every cup.The Guava rind alone has more vitamin C than you'd find in the flesh of an orange.

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4. Swiss chard A half cup of cooked Swiss chard provides a huge amount of both lutein and zeaxanthin, supplying 10 mg each. These plant chemicals, known as carotenoids, protect your retinas from the damage of aging, That's because both nutrients, which are actually pigments, appear to accumulate in your retinas, where they absorb the type of shortwave light rays that can damage your eyes. So the more lutein and zeaxanthin you eat, the better your internal eye protection will be.

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5. Cinnamon Cinnamon helps control your blood sugar, which influences your risk of heart disease. People with type-2 diabetes who consumed 1 g of cinnamon a day for 6 weeks (about 1/4 teaspoon each day) significantly reduced not only their blood sugar but also their triglycerides and LDL (bad) cholesterol. Credit the spice's active ingredients, methylhydroxychalcone polymers, which increase your cells' ability to metabolize sugar by up to 20 times.

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6. Purslane Purslane has the highest amount of heart-healthy omega-3 fats of any edible plant. This herb has 10 to 20 times more melatonin -- an antioxidant that may inhibit cancer growth -- than any other fruit or vegetable tested.

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7. Pomegranate juice Scientists discovered that men who downed just 2 ounces of pomegranate juice daily for a year decreased their systolic (top number) blood pressure by 21 percent and significantly improved bloodflow to their hearts. What's more, 4 ounces provides 50 percent of your daily vitamin C needs. Studies suggest pomegranate juice may contain almost three times the antioxidant power of green tea and red wine due to their content of flavonoids. They also provide substantial amounts of potassium, iron, folic acid and vitamin C, as well as vitamins A and E, niacin, and fibre.

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8. Goji berries Goji berries have one of the highest ORAC ratings -- a method of gauging antioxidant power -- of any fruit, The sugars that make goji berries sweet reduce insulin resistance -- a risk factor of diabetes -- in rats.

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9. Dried plums Prunes contain high amounts of neochlorogenic and chlorogenic acids, antioxidants that are particularly effective at combating the "superoxide anion radical." This nasty free radical causes structural damage to your cells, and such damage is thought to be one of the primary causes of cancer

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10. Pumpkin seeds Pumpkin seeds is the easiest way to consume more magnesium. Men with the highest levels of magnesium in their blood have a 40 percent lower risk of early death than those with the lowest levels.