Superfoods are a hot topic in the world of health and are increasing touted as being among the healthiest food sources available.
Superfoods include berries, leafy greens, sprouts, bee pollen, aloe vera, raw cacao, gogji berries, flax seeds and many others.
I don't have a problem really with berries or leafy greens.
In fact I really feel that we all need to be consuming lots of leafy greens in our diet and plenty of fruits.
So if you desire berries, go for it and eat lots of them (I currently have a major love for blueberries!).
When we take those superfoods and ground them down into a powder or a pill form, that's when I have an issue.
Green superfoods or green powder have received a lot of attention in the past few decades; specifically green superfoods such as spirulina, blue green algae and chlorella.
I was even suckered into buying some green blue algae at one point in my life, believing it would was beneficial and necessary for health.
I am not saying they can't be beneficial but I do not think they are necessary for a healthy lifestyle.
Superfoods, along with vitamin supplements (more on this in another post), are recommended regardless of what diet we are on, to make up for nutritional inadequacies but claims are ridiculous and scientifically false.
If you are eating a diet with an abundance of fresh whole fruits, vegetables and leafy greens, getting plenty of exercise, plenty of sleep, sunshine and fresh air and leading a healthy lifestyle, you do not need to supplement with anything, including superfoods.
If you do not live this way, simply supplementing or eating "superfoods" isn't the answer and isn't going to be helpful in the long run.
Any food that has had its water removed, its fiber removed and vital components stripped out is not a whole food let alone a health food.
Concentrated vitamins out of the ratio that nature intended in whole fruits and vegetables aren't healthy either.
Not to mention when one removes the water from food, the oxidation process destroys many of the remaining nutrients, making them far less nutritious than they were in a whole state.
We do not need them and we are the only creatures on the earth to grind things into dried powders and pills and think we will benefit from them and even call them superfoods.
On top of this supplementation really is only necessary under some circumstances.
Dr.
Joel Fuhrman (a nutrition expert and practising physician) recommends supplements in some circumstances, but agrees that they can be dangerous.
He states in his book Eat to Live: "A high intake of just one nutrient when nature has combined it with many others may make things worse, not better.
We humans, especially physicians, are notorious for interfering with nature, thinking we know better.
Sometimes we do- all too often we don't.
Only later, when it is often too late, do we realize that in fact we have made things worse.
While it still may take decades longer to understand how whole foods promote health, we must accept the fact that the foods found in nature are ideally suited to the biological needs of the species.
" The amount of nutrients we require are far less than medical advice allows us to believe.
High fat and low raw food diets mean we absorb very small amounts of nutrients from the food we eat, making it seem as though we need more of them, when really we need to change the way we eat to a low fat, high raw diet.
Correcting one's lifestyle, consuming lots of fruits and vegetables and cutting down our fat intake is key to improving absorption and utilization of nutrients and health.
Save Your Money for Fruit: Avoid Superfoods Anyone endorsing superfoods, trying to sell to you the latest scientific breakthrough is only after your money and isn't concerned about your health.
Superfoods are an expensive waste of time and money.
Do yourself a favor and use the money you would have spent on superfoods and use it to buy some fruit and vegetables - you will be MUCH better off.