Drink a glass of this with your oatmeal to help elevate your breakfast to superfood status: orange juice.

Why? The nutrients in oatmeal and OJ work synergistically to provide double the benefits you'd expect from simply adding their powers together.

Food Synergy
The phenols in oatmeal and the vitamin C in OJ both help make LDL more stable -- and that's a good thing, because the more stable LDL is, the less likely it is to rupture, stick to artery walls, and cause this. But consume the phenols and vitamin C together and they'll stabilize LDL at twice the level expected from adding their effects together. It's like this: 2 + 2 = 8, not 4, when it comes to phenol + vitamin C benefits. Look up more C sources with this online tool.

Cast a Wide Net
So how can you take advantage of more food synergies? The best way is to eat a varied diet rich in colorful fruits and veggies, healthy fats, different kinds of whole grains, and few or no processed foods. This will give nutrients the best shot at meeting up in your body and reinforcing one another as they guard against disease. (Here's a starter plan for making your diet more varied.)

Ever wonder what those strange-sounding ingredients in processed foods are? Here's a chart that breaks it down for you.

Avenanthramides and phenolic acids from oats are bioavailable and act synergistically with vitamin C to enhance hamster and human LDL resistance to oxidation. Chen, C. Y., Milbury, P. E., Kwak, H. K., Collins, F. W., Samuel, P., Blumberg, J. B., Journal of Nutrition 2004 Jun;134(6):1459-1466.

Vegetables, fruits and phytoestrogens in the prevention of diseases. Heber, D., Journal of Postgraduate Medicine 2004 Apr-Jun;50(2):145-149.

Nutrients, foods, and dietary patterns as exposures in research: a framework for food synergy. Jacobs, D. R. Jr., Steffen, L. M., American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2003 Sep;78(3):508S-513S.