Cocktails are full of antioxidants

According to the Better Health website antioxidants may reduce the risk of heart disease and cancers by scavenging free radicals from body cells.  And we all know that the more colourful the food source, the more antioxidants present.

So today I had an epiphany - cocktails, in all their colourful forms - are good for you.  Full of fresh fruit, fruit juices and refreshing crushed ice they must be healthy.  And, as part of my research, I am working my way through the cocktail menu at the resort.  

It started in duty free at Melbourne airport with me trying to select an alcoholic base drink to bring to Fiji.  After some consultation we decided that rum was a versitile mixer and also very suited to a tropical paradise, and even better, they had a Malibu Carribean rum flavoured with coconut !  How can you walk past a litre bottle of that - duty free ?  And with coconut, surely it is only a matter of time before coconut is the new superfood.  If so it could be the making of Fiji as coconut palms are surfeit, in fact we have to take care walking around the resort to avoid falling coconuts. Though apparently the claim that coconuts cause more deaths than sharks is spurious and the offending 1984 study that made that claim has been debunked.  Too late for the coconut palms in Queensland though, in 2002 they were all removed from the local beaches.

So as a pre-dinner cocktail we have been enjoying a dash of rum with pineapple juice - so there you have it - coconut and pineapple, full of vitamins.  Then when we get to the restaurant I may enjoy another cocktail.  I mean it is rude not to after the barman has gone to so much trouble to prepare the daily special.

Tonight was the pre wedding cocktail party so we indulged aplenty, but you know you have gone too far when you just start wildly ordering from the menu by colour, and really, when you have reached the stage of ordering the Blue Marlin (yes, I am talking Blue Curacao) you know it is time to go to bed.

So, back to my point.  With all that colour surely cocktails are chasing away all those nasty free radicals.  And they can't have that much alcohol is them because they taste like lolly water.  I guess tomorrow will bear witness to how much alcohol is in a cocktail.

Apart from the cocktails Fijian food is simple, and I doubt very much that they worry about free radicals.  I suggest that the Fijians reckon if you deep fry anything enough there are no things like free radicals left to be bothered about. As for complex carbohydrates - I would be surprised if the Fijians found carbohydrates complex. Carbohydrates seem to be a very natural part of the diet, in aboundance.

Probably some of the better food we have eaten here has been Indian.  Though I am not sure the Fijians agree with my taste for Indian food.  As I reached for the Tabasco sauce at lunch to top up the flavour on my chicken burger the waitress looked aghast.  I explained I liked hot food and back in Melbourne we often ate spicey Indian meals.  It was a concept thvat was lost on her.  Frankly, I would probably have gotten a more positive reaction if I had tried to extol the virtues of antixodants in the daily diet.