The truth about superfoods
What are superfoods, and are they really all they’re cracked up to be? Time Out lifts the lid on a triumph of marketing over common sense
Superfoods wear their nutritional credentials as conspicuously as an action hero wears figure-hugging tights. Eat blueberries, watercress and Brazil nuts, we’re told, and they’ll save us from the ravages of age and illness. The result – not least in a capital full of high-pressured workers desperate for a healthy quick-fix – is that sales are soaring as dramatically as Superman himself whenever he saves the world. The most recent nationwide figures (for 2007) showed British shoppers spent £95 million on blueberries alone, a 132 per cent rise in sales since 2005. Spinach sales went up from £32m to £42m, and we bought 31 per cent more salmon than two years before.
These so-called superfoods – a category which also embraces broccoli, beetroot, turkey, oats, bananas and even curly kale, the list keeps growing – have been identified as high in the micronutrients that may reduce the risk of cancer and heart disease. So too have esoteric foods from faraway places such as wizened little goji berries from Tibet and açai berries from Brazil. But the real miracle is that so many people actually believe these ‘superfoods’ have special health-enhancing qualities, especially now that the term itself – ‘superfood’ – is due to be banned by EU legislation.
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Michael Pollan’s recent book ‘In Defence of Food’ convincingly argues that we are in thrall to the notion of eating nutrients, when we should in fact be eating food. Anna Denny, the British Nutrition Foundation’s nutrition scientist, explains, ‘There is no such thing as “superfoods”, only super-diets.’ Yet as Pollan observes, ‘a handful of lucky wholefoods have recently gotten the ‘good nutrient’ marketing treatment: the antioxidants in the pomegranate (a fruit formerly more trouble to eat than it was worth ) now apparently protects against cancer and erectile dysfunction, and the omega-3 fatty acids in the walnut ward off heart disease.’
Vague and misleading
So how can the food industry get away with claims that many experts, including nutritional biochemist Jeremy Spencer from Reading University would describe as ‘a marketing trick’. In part it has been possible because the term ‘superfood’ has no official or scientific definition. That’s all about to change, however. Following last July’s introduction of EU legislation to prevent vague and misleading health claims on foods, in future if the term is used it will have to be backed up by convincing research. Food producers have until 2009 to present the evidence for their health claims to the European Food Safety Authority. It seems unlikely that most ‘superfoods’ will survive such scrutiny.
In the meantime, the term ‘superfood’ continues to be scattered as liberally as blueberries across a fitness fanatic’s breakfast cereal. Walk into any London supermarket and you’ll see Jordan’s Superfoods cereal bars, and Innocent’s pomegranate, blueberry and açai ‘superfoods’ smoothie. Even Ocado is at it. Along the online Waitrose ‘superfoods’ aisle are soya and linseed-fortified bread, cinnamon and nutmeg, swede, shiitake mushrooms and fennel.
It’s not just the supermarkets who are cashing in. Author Michael van Straten has built up a bookwriting business with ‘Superfoods Superfast’; ‘The Superfood Pocketbook’; ‘Organic Super Foods’; ‘The Complete Superfoods Cookbook’ and ‘Super Hot Drinks’ (that’s a lot of cups of antioxidant tea). Even some nutritionists are enthusiastic proponents. According to nutritionist Patrick Holford, blue-green algae – such as spirulina from lakes in Africa and Mexico – ‘represent the purest nutrition you can get, rich in chlorophyll, vitamins, minerals, essential fats and phytonutrients.’
The chlorophyll of which wheatgrass boasts is not absorbed by the body and if it was, ‘wouldn’t be good for us,’ says Spencer. A 30g serving of cooked spinach or broccoli or a portion of garden salad contains more vitamins and minerals than a shot of the grass-green juice, and you’ll get fibre too.
The truth is that for a heathy diet we need the vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals – the non-nutrient components of plants – that all fruit and vegetables contain. Some foods are high in antioxidants such as vitamin C, which are known to help combat free radicals – harmful molecules that damage cells and DNA and can contribute to ageing, heart disease and cancer. Once nutritionists had got hold of this idea, they introduced the term ‘superfoods’. Flavonoids, responsible for the colour of dark fruits such as blueberries, and other phytochemicals such as betacarotene, are also known for their antioxidant properties, which is why anything purple, red and bright green has been hogging the limelight.
However, scientists and nutrition experts believe too much importance may be attached to how antioxidant activity protects against disease. Eating a mixture of foods is important because the nutrients may work in combination to protect against certain diseases. ‘There is always nutrient interaction,’ says dietician Jacqui Lowdon, spokesperson for the British Dietetic Association. ‘I’d like to label all fruit and vegetables as superfoods.’
Although some foods may undoubtably prove high in certain micronutrients measured in a test tube, it’s what happens when you eat them that counts. The body only absorbs a fraction and any more than it needs will be expelled or could become toxic, Spencer explains. So you could literally be pissing away the fortune you just spent on rare berries.
Science funded by producers
You also have to ask who paid for the tests to be carried out. Some of the original studies of the effect of blueberries on memory were sponsored by interested parties in north America where most of the blueberries we buy are grown, the Reading University lecturer suggests. While blueberries certainly have a high phytochemical content and are very good for us, there haven’t been similar tests using our homegrown blackcurrants – or the free hedgerow blackberries (brambles) from which no commercial interest stands to gain.
Author Michael Pollan identifies the superfoods subcategory of nutritional science as one funded by producers or manufacturers of those foods specifically to come up with results of health benefits that will sell their produce. These studies are remarkably successful at finding good reasons for eating the particular food.
Most of us don’t eat enough fruit and vegetables as it is, and would be better off having a whole carrot instead of a spoonful of spirulina. Even so Pollan ruefully concludes, ‘Who wants to hear, yet again, that you should "eat more fruits and vegetables" ?'
Feature by Caroline Stacey.
