Superfoods: Hype or Health?

By Amanda Box, N.D.

The word “Superfood” is constantly popping up in the world of health and nutrition.  Although the word itself implies health, many companies are using this good-for-you description to hype up their products and increase sales.  The truth is not all superfoods are created equal.

It truly boils down to defining what a superfood really is and exposing the exaggerated claims.

Do superfoods exist?  Absolutely.

However, my personal definition of superfood may differ from what many are claiming. These days there is such a vast amount of confusing, and at times conflicting, information on superfoods. There’s nothing wrong with many superfoods; what’s wrong is the claim of superpower status. While some superfoods do have some great health benefits, buyers beware – you also get what you pay for. That’s why it’s so important to arm yourself with the facts.

It is my hope that I can clearly communicate to you which superfoods boast an abundance of certain nutrients that are deemed healthy and are worth incorporating into your life and daily diet, and which foods deserve no special consideration which being overpriced or overrated.(2)

What is a Superfood?

There’s no official definition of what makes a superfood. My definition of a superfood is really quite simple.

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  It is a food in it’s natural state that is very nutritionally dense.

• It is also as free as possible from chemicals like pesticides and herbicides.
• They are typically high in one or more of the following:
  • Vitamins
  • Mineral
  • Amino acids
  • Fiber
  • Protein
  • Phytochemicals
  • Antioxidants

Basically, superfoods fill you up with most of the nutrients and minerals we are all missing from our average American diet, even those of us who are healthy. A superfood can do some wonderful things in the body that typical foods cannot.  They may:

• Naturally boost energy
• Slow the aging process
• Strengthen the immune system
• Enhance mental clarity and focus
• Or balance hormones

These characteristics, in my opinion, are what makes a food super, making them an excellent choice for those wishing to pursue a healthier lifestyle.  Remember, superfoods are pure, created by the force of nature, without any added enhancements or modifications.

Superfood Lies

Food and supplement companies can easily manipulate you to purchase a specific product because of its superfood label:

• Manufacturers can make a sugar filled cereal look healthy by putting “Whole Grains” on the label.
• They enhance unhealthy beverages by adding vitamins and minerals to fool you into believing that they are now good for you.

If you aren’t trained to actually look at the ingredients and nutritional information, then it is easy to become prey to purchase junk foods disguised as health foods.  Sugar, corn syrups, and other empty-calorie additions often top the ingredient list on candy, fruit snacks, or sugary drinks disguised as superfoods. That, in my view, is superlame.

Companies will put whatever they can on their product to hook you into a purchase. They’ll use colorful designs and pictures that are appealing to the eye to “label me delicious.” Companies have taken note of the new superfood craze and have made no hesitation in adding the word “superfood” to their labels, despite clinical evidence of nutritious content.  Marketing products is a multi-billion dollar industry and they are excellent at what they do.  Don’t buy into their schemes!  After all, does a label make the product?

The first step in identifying whether a food is really healthy is reading the nutritional labels. There is definitely a learning curve to distinguishing between healthy and unhealthy foods. And there is even a greater curve in distinguishing between regular health foods and superfoods! However, with a bit of practice, it will become second nature for you.

Let me give you an idea of how to read between the lines when looking at the labels. Making sense of labels is a 3-step process:

1. Read the ingredients.  Any product that has several ingredients followed by a list of vitamins is not a true superfood.  Superfoods have naturally occurring vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. In fact, natural foods are unlikely to have any label, at all!  Adding synthetic vitamins, which are not easily absorbed by the body, to these foods does not count as available nutrition.

2. Read the nutritional content.  After you determine whether or not there are added vitamins or minerals, you need to evaluate the nutritional content per serving.  Check for the levels of:

• • Vitamins
  • Minerals
  • Protein

I find that the levels of fat and calories typically aren’t worrisome, as long as they come from pure and natural sources.  Amino acids and antioxidants, often naturally high in superfoods, aren’t typically on the nutrition label unless the company felt compelled to put them there.  This brings me to step 3.

3. Do your research.  If you really want to know if a food is “super” or not, it may take some research on your part.  Hop on the internet and begin your research for foods that have natural health-promoting properties such as reducing one’s risk of disease or improving any aspect of physical or emotional health.  Stay clear of sites with dizzying array of information, claims and produced products to boost your chance of purchasing. Find as much objective research as possible. Look for what makes that particular food so special. Many times the claims don’t match up with what is really in the food itself.  The term superfood is a loose label put on certain foods by all sorts of people.

For those of you with little time to do your own research, fear not!  I’m going to expose some of the most popular “not so super” foods on the market that are touted as though they are super.

Exposing Not So Super Foods

Spirulina

The first super food I want to expose is Spirulina.  Spirulina, a blue-green algae, has been on the market for a while now and has been renowned as a healthy food supplement for years.  However, it isn’t as healthy as you may have been led to believe.  Don’t get me wrong, Spirulina is not all bad.  It has some very redeeming qualities, such as its protein and amino acid content.  However, spirulina is being marketed as the “end all be all” vitamin and protein source for vegetarians and vegans.

Marketing spirulina as a meat replacement is extremely dangerous.  Is it healthy for you?  Maybe. However, I have 2 concerns about spirulina.

1. Spirulina’s per serving protein content is minimal. Although some spirulina contains up to 60% protein, each serving typically only contains a gram or two.  If you were to truly use it as a replacement of meat, you’d likely break the bank by having to buy it by the gallon!
2. The B12 in spirulina is not all it’s cracked up to be. Though significant for a vegan source, it’s in an analog form that is not usable by the body.  This analog form actually competes with absorbable B12 in the body, blocking its absorption and delaying healing in the body. B12 deficiency can be extremely serious for vegans and vegetarians. I definitely would not recommend spirulina to those whose diets lack in protein and B12.  Instead, I recommend a whole food vitamin that is high in B12 (methylcobalamin form is best absorbed) and a great vegan protein powder like pea, hemp or rice.

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Agave Nectar

Agave nectar is soaring in popularity at the moment, but only thanks to false advertising.  Nothing makes me more angry than when companies convince innocent customers that their product is healthy when, in fact, it is not!  I feel like the bad guy when I inform those well meaning people that they have been scammed.

Does agave nectar have a lower glycemic index than white sugar?  Sure.  But agave nectar has little to no nutritional value. It is a new sweetener, not one that has nourished humans for thousands of years.  Agave nectar’s concentrated syrupy sweetness is a result of an intense, multiple step manufacturing process, not mother nature.

It is still extremely high in fructose, which can cause insulin resistance and weight gain.  The concentration of fructose in agave is actually higher than in high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)! It also has the exact same amount of calories per teaspoon as white sugar. There really are no redeeming qualities to agave nectar.  I recommend using stevia or xylitol as a healthy replacement.

Soy

If there is a “health” food product that I loathe the most, it has got to be soy.  I personally battled with a soy intolerance for years that left me bloated, tired, and hormonally wrecked.  I bought into the lie that soy was a super health food and consumed it daily hoping to improve my health.  The opposite happened for me and it, unfortunately, took me over a year to figure out that soy was the source of my new health disturbances.

Soy hides out nearly everywhere.  It is a cheap food additive and is used so often that you have to watch for it carefully to fully avoid it. It is the star in cereals, so called health foods and hidden in processed foods (hydrolyzed soy protein anyone?).

Soy products like tofu, meat alternatives, and even toasted soy nuts have been promoted as a wonderful source of protein for the body. I 100% disagree!  If you want a great vegetarian source of protein without side-effects, then use hemp, rice, or pea protein instead.

Soy is the furthest thing from super, in my book.  It is one of the most popular health foods in the world, but there are serious health problems including plant estrogens, toxins and antinutrients. Its consumption carries a whole host of potential side-effects. Some of the most common include:

• Infertility
• Digestive problems
• Erectile Disfunction
• Accelerated Aging
• Hypothyroidism
• Blocking of essential mineral absorption

Furthermore, most soy is genetically modified, which in itself has potential side-effects.  The soybean was a modest and unpopular crop until food manufacturers intent on creating cheap vegetable oils convinced the U.S. government to start subsidizing it. The soy was turned into oil, and the industry was left with an industrial waste product. Then somebody had a brilliant idea – Let’s take this industrial waste product full of toxins and carcinogens — isolated soy protein — and turn it into food that people will eat!

Soy foods were born.

If you want to get healthy, I suggest avoiding soy consumption at all costs.

My Top 3 Favorite Superfoods

At this point you may be wondering if there are any actual superfoods I endorse.  Of course there are!  I try to keep my diet as full of superfoods as possible — and on a reasonable budget.  Fresh, organic, and natural food is expensive!  So, I try and get the most bang for my buck when it comes to the healthiest foods.  I keep these 3 foods stocked in my cabinet for their great nutrition and health benefits.  Not everyone may consider them “super,” but I believe they are.

Coconut Oil

Coconut oil is one of the most incredible things you can put in your body.  It is healthy for your body from head to toe, inside and out! Though many may avoid consuming it because they believe it will cause weight gain, the opposite is actually the case.

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  Coconut oil stimulates the thyroid and can actually promote weight loss!
• Plus, it is a healthy fat that can decrease your appetite.

Coconut oil has been described as “the healthiest oil on earth.” That’s quite a remarkable statement. What makes coconut oil so good? What makes it different from all other oils, especially other saturated fats? Coconut oil contains over 50% lauric acid.  Lauric acid contains some incredible properties.  It is naturally:

• Antimicrobial
• Antibacterial
• Antiviral
• Antiparasitic
• Antifugal

I recommend taking at least 2 tablespoons a day of coconut oil.  You can put it in your coffee, spread it on your toast, or just take it by the spoonful.   Coconut oil boosts the immune system, promotes weight loss, moisturizes your skin and boosts the thyroid.  I would definitely call it a superfood!

Grass Fed Butter

Can butter really be considered a superfood?  I believe so!  The key though, is that it needs to be grass fed.  Grass fed butter, otherwise called pasture butter, contains amazing nutritional benefits that conventional butter does not contain.

I call my pasture butter, fat burning butter. Pasture butter has three to five times higher conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) levels than conventional butter.  CLA is an ingredient found to naturally burn excess fat in the body, decrease belly fat and more fat loss in overweight individuals. The immune system also gets a boost from CLA, and muscle building is helped as well.

Grass fed butter also naturally contains:

• Vitamins A, D, E, and K2
• Trace minerals like selenium, iodine, copper, and zinc
• Glycospingolipids – fatty acid that protects the intestinal tract from infections
• Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids

There are clear winners and losers in life. Grass-fed butter wins hands down to conventional better. There’s not much more to say other than get out there and find yourself a decent source of grass-fed butter! Grass fed butter can be purchased at your local health food store.  I purchase the brand Organic Valley.  However, if you have a local dairy farmer who grass feeds his cows, having deep yellow-orange raw grass fed butter is even better!

Free Range Eggs

Free range eggs are one of the most nutritious things you can put in your body. For years they were demonized stating that they raised your cholesterol.  That is a myth that has been proven incorrect.  After a recent study published in The Journal Of Nutrition, Dr. Robert Nicolosi at the University of Massachusetts said, “Our data shows that eating an egg a day is not a factor for raising cholesterol.” (1)

Here are the top 5 reasons why free range eggs are a superfood. Eggs, yolk and all, provide you with an amazing source of:

1. Protein – one of the highest quality proteins you can find
2. Amino Acids – 9 in all!
3. Eye nourishing nutrients lutein and zeaxanthin
4. Naturally occurring vitamin B12
5. Choline, which is important for maintaining a healthy brain and nervous system

One last thing. Keep in mind that the quality of the egg is only as good as the quality of the bird it came from. This is why I recommend free range eggs. Local is always best.  Check out your local farmers market for eggs pasture-raised, locally.

Superfood Misconceptions

I know I have probably surprised you by what I consider to be a true superfood.  Many times, exotic foods tend to often be the focus of superfood attention.  However, going back to the basics of true, natural, and unadulterated foods can be about as super as you can get.  You don’t have to buy the latest and greatest fad superfood to receive amazing health benefits.  The often overlooked basics are sometimes the best “super powerful” foods.

 

While we do not share your email address, you might want to share this article with someone you know whose  health will benefit from adding more superfoods to their daily diet!

 

More Articles You Might Enjoy:

• To Soy or Not To Soy?
• Foods for a Restful Sleep
• A Smoothie That Stops Cravings

 

 

 

 

(1) http://jn.nutrition.org/content/136/10/2519.full

(2) http://www.naturalnews.com/038324_food_superfood_nutritional_density.html#ixzz2QBwrMYZu