Phytochemicals are non-nutritive plant chemicals that have protective or disease preventive properties. They are non-essential nutrients, meaning that they are not required by the human body for sustaining life.
- It is well-known that plant produce these chemicals to protect themselves but recent research demonstrate that they can also protect humans against diseases.
- There are more than thousand known phytochemicals. Some of the well-known phytochemicals are lycopene in tomatoes, isoflavones in soy and flavanoids in fruits.
References
Source: www.phytochemicals.info/