If loading yogurt with a million active cultures of bacteria (irrespective of whether they are alive at the time of consumption) to produce probiotics or freezing wild blueberries for off-season consumption, imparts ‘superpowers’ to those foods, then yes, superfoods exist.
There are certainly a handful of foods that score much higher on the nutrition scale compared to the rest. But they are not the “go to” answer of nutrition. Health is determined by a wide array of decisions, environmental conditions, and genetic factors and a single food item, no matter how super it tastes or seems, doesn’t have the ability to magically improve health, increase life expectancy, or combat disease.
In the petri dish maybe, but not in the body.
Need to cure diabetes? Or breast cancer? Or lung cancer? Broccoli is the solution. Why? Because some study, somewhere, about the effect of a broccoli-derived chemical on some cells in some Petri dish found so. The effect of a certain chemical from a vegetable on a few cells in the Petri plate under the ideal laboratory conditions is not a reason to overturn dietary habits; at best it provides a small enhancement, or minor course correction to a healthy varied diet.
Ashley Harris, a registered dietician for the James Cancer Hospital at Ohio State University, says “While it is easy to declare a nutrition winner between foods when only looking at an isolated nutrient, trying to claim an overall winner between generally healthy foods is impossible. It is literally like comparing apples to oranges.”
Coconut oil may be great in bolstering thyroid function, digestion and reducing cholesterol, but because it is high in calories and saturated fat, excessive consumption of it can have an entirely opposite effect on the health. Similarly, solely thriving on blueberries and completely omitting other fruits deprives the body of essential nutrients found in other foods..
What was yesterday a superfood, may not be on the list today.
The grouping of food items under the category of superfoods seems to change every day. Since there is no official definition of ‘superfood’, the more nutrients and phytochemicals are researched, the more ‘superfoods’ will surface, upstaging the presently trusted varieties.
Simply put, the term has become nebulous and highly misused in America, to the degree that even processed foods (which contain sugars and other additives) holding zero accountability for health claims are marketed as 'superfoods.'
The holistic approach…
Of course, it is profitable to have knowledge of the nutrients in foods, but the bottom line remains the same: eat a varied diet including plenty of colorful vegetables. A well-balanced diet which offers a natural dose of essential macro and micronutrients is a super diet.
To conclude, a food item can be ‘new’, ‘fresh’, ‘nutritious’ or ‘free’, it can even be ‘super’ but it cannot be imbued with superpowers.
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