Superfoods – not so new, not so super

Nova Corcoran

If you pay even limited attention to the media you will be familiar with the term ‘superfood’. Superfood is a buzz word applied to foods that are rich in nutrients or antioxidants thus helping the bodies’ immune system to fight off illness and disease or to help maintain health.

No one can actually agree on what the main superfoods are. The Superfoodco website identifies 43 different superfoods including alfalfa, kelp and liquorice. Marie Claire lists 10 superfoods; avocado, bananas, broccoli, brown rice, grapes, oats, oily fish, strawberries, watercress and sprouted seeds (Marie Claire 2010). Wolfe, an American nutrition expert, also lists 10 superfoods including Goji Berry, Cacao, Maca, Bee Products, Spirulina, AFA Super Blue-Green Algae, Marine Phytoplankton, Aloe Vera, Hempseed, Coconuts (Gaffney 2011). Given that most of these are not available in your average supermarket Marie Claire’s list is perhaps a little more realistic about our daily diets. When was the last time you ate algae and phytoplankton?

Few, if any, superfoods are newly discovered. Most have been eaten for thousands of years often written about in Egyptian, Greek and Roman history. What is new about superfoods is the scientific research, media reports and marketing strategies. Superfoods are foods that have been re-marketed as ‘super’. If we just look at alfalfa, kelp and liquorice from the superco list, all of these have been eaten for centuries. Kelp was eaten by early civilizations where it often provided a reliable and nutritious food source (mckeller 2011), and liquorice has been reputed to have many health benefits (Ilovelicorice.com 2011).

I am not disputing that some foods have more benefits than others, but whichever food is the most ‘super’ one fact remains, as stand alone foods they cannot do the job by themselves. Superfoods need to be eaten as part of a balanced diet. Eating high fat foods like chips everyday cannot be counterbalanced by eating a superfood each day. One food will not work by itself as you need to eat a variety of different foods to gain the most benefit (Carenevale 2010). Some farming and processing methods can reduce the vitamin or mineral content in food thus reducing benefits and in some cases our daily food intake can actually restrict vitamin uptake. For example caffeine from tea and coffee restricts vitamin C uptake from fruit and vegetables. In addition our bodies only take as many vitamins as we need, so overdosing on a food high in vitamin C just means that we will excrete the excess vitamin C (Saner 2007). Balance is the key and the most health benefits will come from a super diet rather than a superfood. So next time you read about a new superfood remember it may not be as super as it sounds.