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The Truth About Superfoods

Superfoods are food with high quantities of nutrients like unsaturated fats, fibre, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants¹ and come with the claim of health benefits rising from these nutrients. Examples of superfoods are spinach, berries and avocados.

Superfood is not a medical or scientific term, but a marketing term intended to differentiate highly nutritious food from the rest and sell them with claims of health benefits.

However, most claims come with no proof whatsoever and only aimed at faster sales on false pretence. Most health agencies have prohibited the use of the term "superfoods" or the advertisement of health benefits without evidence to sell superfoods (source: Wikipedia).

• The Dutch Nutrition Center has categorically stated that "Superfoods doesn't exist at all." and that "there are no such miracle cures" referring to the health claims. The reliance on superfood can create a false sense of security thus causing an "imperfect, one sided diet.²"
• The European Union legislation prohibited even the use of the term superfood unless the food comes with authorised health claim with evidence³.

The rest of the health benefit claims can be proved scientifically, such as that certain compounds in blueberries can inhibit cancer cell growth in the colon and even kill them⁴.

However, the results of such studies are hard to replicate in the real world because of difference in conditions in the lab and in the real world. The European Food Information Council (EUFIC) lists three reasons for this⁵.

• In the research of nutritional treatment or extraordinary health benefits of nutrients, the effect can be achieved only through the administration of extremely high quantities of nutrients. Such high quantities are not attainable by the consumption of superfoods in normal quantities. Also, some superfoods like blue berries contain only moderately⁶ high amounts of nutrients.
• In you considering having these superfoods in high quantities and frequently to fix the above problem, you run into the problem of attaining other nutrients in the superfood in high quantities too, which may be dangerous to the body. For example, consuming too much chocolate to reap the benefits of cocoa flavonoids exposes your to an extremely high sugar diet, which comes with its own dangers.
• The absorption of nutrients by human body varies as per how it is consumed (isolated or co-consumed)⁷. Most studies and researches on nutritional science are conducted by the isolated administration of nutrients whereas in real life, we consume a variety of nutrients when we eat something. This changes the way nutrients are absorbed in the body. The point is, you may not be achieving the effect of nutritional study in you normal life when you eat food rich in these nutrients (superfoods).

So what should you do?

You may include superfoods in you diet for the general nutrition they provide; not for the super claims of health benefits made by their producers or sellers. If you are in need of insanely high amounts of nutrition, if you are a high performance athlete or a body builder, superfoods can help you get these nutrients quite easily and fast. Otherwise, the categorisation of superfood is useless.

Treat superfoods as you would treat every other food. All food are healthy so long as you take them in the right amount and at the right time. What brings health is not a particular food, but a variety of food forming a balanced diet. So ensure that your diet is balanced (or one recommended by a health professional) and you're all set.

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