Miami ? If you’re the kind of health-conscious eater who scoops blueberries onto your breakfast cereal and piles broccoli, spinach and sweet potatoes onto your dinner plate, we have one word for you: Guava.

The super-food reputation of the above-mentioned fruits and vegetables is based largely on their prodigious antioxidant activity. And preliminary findings by federal researchers show that guava – along with carambola – belongs in their league.

In fact, on one widely used antioxidant test, South Florida’s own guayaba outscored them all except blueberries, finishing just behind the much-less-lovable kale.

“They really do compare favorably,” senior editor Allison Cleary of Eating Well magazine says of guava’s showing on the antioxidant test. “What a wonderful boon to people with a guava tree in their back yard.”

The research is being conducted at the USDA Agriculture Research Service’s Citrus and Subtropical Products Lab under a grant from the Tropical Fruit Growers of South Florida.

After additional testing, says lead researcher Elizabeth Baldwin, the team will submit its findings to a scientific journal for publication, a process that could take six months to a year.

“Antioxidant” is a buzzword you’ve probably heard but may not fully understand:

They’re plant chemicals (aka phytochemicals) that have the power to neutralize free radicals – unstable compounds generated by our bodies (and found in pollutants like cigarette smoke) that can wreak havoc with our health. Free radicals cause oxidative damage to human cells that can trigger heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

The public is catching on to the concept.

“Consumers are aware of the term ‘antioxidant’ – they know they’re important; they know that they’re good for you, and they know that you should eat foods that have more of them,” said Ilene Smith, vice president and director of nutrition marketing for Ketchum, a public relations firm whose clients include California strawberry and almond growers.

“It’s not just the nutritional geeks anymore.”

That growing awareness is opening up fruitful new avenues for producers, marketers, even publishers.

Pomegranate juice, the current king of the antioxidant hill, has muscled its way into major supermarkets.

And The 12 Best Foods Cookbook – about blueberries, black beans, broccoli, chocolate, oats, onions, salmon, soy, spinach, sweet potatoes, tomatoes and walnuts – is the hot spring title from health-oriented Rodale Press. (Yes, black beans. The most deeply colored fruits, vegetables and legumes are generally the most nutrient-dense.)

If the USDA team’s findings are borne out, it will be star-turn time for guava.

Eating Well’s Cleary said two important messages were emerging from antioxidant research: First, that the health benefits of these phytochemicals are derived from whole foods, not from supplements.

And second, that “the synergistic effect is powerful” – in other words, that antioxidant activity isn’t the function of a single vitamin or nutrient but of countless compounds in a fruit or vegetable working together.

Dietitian Karen Collins, a nutrition advisor to the American Institute for Cancer Research, offers caveats. For one thing, she said, scores like the ones reported by the USDA are from lab tests, and determining whether they translate into higher blood levels of antioxidants in people who consume the fruits is “a huge task.”

In addition, say Collins and Cleary, it is important to remember our understanding of the thousands of potentially health-boosting chemicals in plant-based foods is in its infancy and that new findings are continually emerging.

“What’s not to say that in another two years we’ll find that cantaloupe is chock-full of disease-fighting compounds,” Cleary said.

Collins said, “Just as it wasn’t all about vitamins, it’s important to point out that just choosing fruits and vegetables by their antioxidant potential isn’t wise, either.”

With that in mind, she said eating a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes and nuts remains the best way to go.

Dishes that don’t gild the guava

Just as blueberry pie a la mode isn’t the most healthful way to consume berries, guava-filled pastelitos aren’t the optimal way to get your guava. All the extra calories and fat detract from the nutritional benefit. We have selected these recipes with that in mind. The guava pie is made with sugary canned shells, but it’s packed with fruit.