Dr Norman Swan

speaker

1,216 appearances 8 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 6d ago

Dr Norman Swan’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 8 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 3.

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What's That Rash? · Eat the rainbow: what can food colour tell us? · 15 Sep 2026 podcast

So it attracts pollinators.

Another reason is that it might be a protection against ultraviolet light.

Another reason might be that the chemical associated with the colour, the phytochemical, in other words a plant based chemical, might protect against infection.

Another one might be to do with the efficiency of growth.

So there are all sorts of functions of these phytochemicals.

And while people talk in humans of, you know, whether antioxidants, anti inflammatory agents, and so on, we'll come back to number some of these specifics.

It's better actually to talk about them as bioactive compounds.

So they're in other words, they're active within the plant and it turns out they're also active in animals and people like you and me.

And another just preface this, apart from the ringing of the bell, is thank you, is that we are talking about whole foods.

So you and I are gonna start separating out the colours and what the colours mean in terms you know in terms of their chemistry.

But the reality is, and it's worth saying this right at the beginning.

Is that we're eating these colours in whole foods.

In a matrix in the food itself.

And in that matrix, in other words, that food web that these chemicals exist in have other chemicals in it, and there's a very complex chemistry that adds up to much more than the individual actions.

So, for example, you can have, say, resveratrol in the red skin of grapes and maybe watermelon or there are other bioactive compounds there too.

But it's got to be

become available to your body.

And so you've got to be able to absorb it.

You've got to be able to metabolize it.

And it turns out that in whole foods and the mix of foods that you eat.

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