the.com/phytonutrient
Plants making their own sunscreen, pest spray, and mood ring — you just eat the byproducts.
means A natural compound found in plants — like beta-carotene or flavonoids — that isn't an essential nutrient like a vitamin but may still help protect your body and promote health.
from Built from Greek 'phyton' (plant) plus 'nutrient,' from Latin 'nutrire' (to nourish). The term itself is a modern coinage from 20th-century nutritional science, created to name a whole class of plant chemicals — pigments, bitter defenses, UV shields — that scientists realized were quietly doing more than just coloring a leaf or souring a bite; some seemed to help the humans who ate them too.
- not essential
- body survives without them, just worse
- color coded
- pigment compounds literally paint the vegetable
- thousands exist
- scientists have catalogued over 25000 types
- stress response
- plants make more under sun or attack