Unmasking Superfoods: The Truth and Hype About Acai, Quinoa, Chia, Blueberries and More

214 Pages·2014·2.16 MB·English

by  Jennifer Sygo

UNMPSKING
SUPER
FOODS
THE TRUTH AND HYPE ABOUT
AÇAÍ, QUINOA,
CHIA, BLUEBERRIES,
AND MORE
JENNIFER SYGO, MSc, RD
Dedication
For Dave, Ben, and Ryan, for making every day better. And to my mom and dad:
Thanks for reminding me that the long-distance runner wins in the end.
CONTENTS
Dedication
Introduction
1 Overhyped, Overpriced, or Just Plain Bogus:
How Industry Corrupted the Superfood Movement
2 Quinoa, I Thought I Knew Ya:
Superfoods with Question Marks
3 Smear Campaign:
Superfoods with an Unfairly Bad Rap
4 Classics!
Superfoods That Still Rule
5 Send Me a Hero:
Overlooked and Underappreciated Superfoods
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
Notes
Copyright
About the Publisher
INTRODUCTION
F
laxseed is so 2006. If I had written this book just a few years ago, I would
probably have written about flaxseed. But in 2014, flaxseed is so obvious it’s
almost, like, yawn. I can actually picture hipsters of the future dusting off a
package of flaxseed and setting off a frenzy of flaxseed collecting. Like drinking
Fanta, eating flaxseed would be steeped in yesteryear irony, a time before we
spent our free moments debating about whether or not our sprouted gluten-free
grains are Paleo, or if there is such thing as an ethical carnivore.
Ironically, considering this book’s title, I actually struggle with the term
superfood. Maybe it’s the Marxist in me, but I’m concerned that it unfairly
elevates certain foods above others, leaving us to feel that if our favourite veggie
isn’t on the list, then it must not have much value. Poor celery! I just don’t think
that attitude is fair or wise. The fact is, for all of our perceived cleverness, we
simply don’t know that much about our food, and we certainly don’t know
enough to say exactly what makes a true “superfood.” Even the ones that seem
the most nutritious have precious little research to tell us whether those extra
nutrients translate into anything particularly meaningful; and sometimes, foods
that look a little average on paper—strawberries, I’m looking at you—seem to
have pretty clear health benefits. I also balk at making eating and nutrition some
kind of competitive sport, where your kale-based smoothie somehow makes you
better than me, because I’m “only” munching on carrot sticks. If we need to feel
sorry for someone because they don’t own a $700 blender to emulsify a week’s
worth of groceries, I think we’ve probably taken a good thing too far. And I’m
afraid the superfood movement might well be feeding into that.
Thankfully, we might finally be starting to appreciate the elegant complexity
of food in its undoctored form. Whole foods have literally hundreds, even
thousands, of active compounds, including phenolics, flavonoids, pigments,
antioxidants, fatty acids, protein, vitamins, minerals, fibre, and resistant starches
—the list goes on and on—and it is the interaction of these nutrients that makes
whole foods so special. But to pretend that we know exactly what makes one
food “super” and another, well, “average” is downright silly. There is too much
left to learn, and, frankly, the whole challenge of understanding food is so
massively complex that I think we’re unlikely to ever get to the bottom of it (but
hats off to all the good researchers who are devoting their life’s work to trying).
As a result, it is not my aim in this book to create a ranking system of
superfoods, although there have been times when I’ve been tempted (it’s hard
not to start mentally awarding gold medals when you see just how magnificent
the nutrition profile of kale is). I’m also not going to pretend this book is in any
way a complete picture of all the foods that could somehow be labelled “super”;
basically, you could take any list of whole foods that walk, fly, swim, or grow
and make the case that somehow, in some way, they qualify. In fact, some classic
superfoods, such as salmon, olive oil, and yogurt, didn’t even make it into this
book, simply because they have been covered so well elsewhere, and if I didn’t
stop somewhere, this book could have gone on forever.
What I do want to do, however, is turn a critical eye to all the hype that
surrounds so many so-called superfoods. Is there good reason for us to jump off
the deep end every time we come across an obscure Himalayan berry? Will
paying $40 for a litre of juice really make us live longer? And what about
common foods that are both affordable and accessible? Are they any less worthy
of our affection? These are important questions in the emerging multi-billion-
dollar health food industry.
This book is divided into five sections. The first looks at superfoods that have
fallen on the wrong side of the regulators or even the law; it should serve as a
cautionary tale about the consequences of us all getting a little drunk on the
latest food craze. The second part of the book is devoted to foods that have
earned a good chunk of hype, yet are so poorly understood that we should
approach them with a dose of caution until we know more. The third section is
all about the dirty pleasures of the superfood world—superfoods that have been
cast aside in the press or the medical literature and yet might have more to offer
than their reputation suggests. The fourth section is all about some of the classic
superfoods, but with careful consideration of what we really know about them
and where our false assumptions lie, while the last part of Unmasking
Superfoods looks at certain foods that might not have the exotic appeal of goji
berries but deserve more attention than they get.
1
OVERHYPED, OVERPRICED, OR JUST PLAIN BOGUS
HOW INDUSTRY CORRUPTED THE SUPERFOOD
MOVEMENT
T
he superfood movement is ripe for fraud. With a growing consumer
population keen on fixing all that ails us through food, the goal is simple: Find
the most nutrient-rich foods you can, and eat as much of them as possible. Now,
this is all well and good when we’re talking about apples and broccoli—foods
that are readily accessible, grown locally, and generally affordable. The picture
muddies, however, when we fall in love with rare and mysterious foods (most
often a berry) from a land far away, with tales of healing powers and the ability
to provide boundless vitality. Amazing, we think. One shot of this per day and
I’ll finally get a six-pack, clean out the garage, and maybe even run across the
Sahara. Brilliant! And really, who couldn’t use more energy? Forty bucks
doesn’t seem unreasonable to cure arthritis, eczema, insomnia, low sex drive,
and wrinkles. How could it? You’re worth it! And while you’re at it, since it’ll
help prevent cancer, heart attacks, and Alzheimer’s disease, maybe you should
take two.
The nutrients, the antioxidants, and the health claims associated with so many
superfoods often sound too good to be true, and if the testimonials are
convincing enough, we might just find ourselves handing over our credit cards
for a month’s supply of a drink, powder, or potion. And we might just feel better
when we take it—for a while.
If you’re a savvy food marketer or business person who has an interest in the
massive health and wellness market, you’d probably like to get one of these so-
called superfoods into consumer hands, and ideally, make a few bucks in the
process. Of course, geography poses a problem: It’s not so easy to get a
Himalayan berry onto grocery store shelves halfway around the world. So, if you
can’t sell it fresh, then what? You turn it into a powder, pill, or juice, but that
increases production costs—so you’d better have a good marketing strategy to
convince the public it’s worth spending their hard-earned cash on. This is the
reality in a competitive health food industry: You have to do something to get
your product noticed. The best way to do that? Tell the world your food cures
just about everything, or get it on TV (The Dr. Oz Show is a great place to start).
This chapter is all about foods that found themselves on both sides of the
superfood hype machine: built up by promises of nutritional greatness and then
brought back to earth by investigative journalism, FDA warning letters, and in
some cases, lawsuits. For better or for worse, these foods, in their original form,
might actually be quite good for you; unfortunately, that feel-good quality tends
to get lost when the cease and desist orders are issued and when consumers are
duped by misleading or fraudulent claims.
AĈAÍ
If there is a food that serves as the blueprint for superfood hype, it might just be
açaí. Unheard of in North America until just a few years ago, açaí (pronounced
ah-SIGH-ee) made its way onto the North American radar in 2008 when famed
physician Dr. Mehmet Oz appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show and touted açaí
among his “anti-aging checklist.”1 With ringing endorsements from the likes of
dermatologist Dr. Nicholas Perricone (a frequent guest of Oprah’s who ranked
açaí as his number one superfood2), açaí rocketed from obscurity to ubiquity in
an Internet heartbeat.
AÇAÍ: THE STORY
Açaí berries are the fruit of the Brazilian palm Euterpe oleracea Martius. With a
long history of use for traditional healing, much of açaí’s popularity, which
reportedly reached US$104 million in 2008,3 centred around its purported
weight-loss benefits, though other claims have been made relating to heart
health, muscle and joint pain relief, and cancer prevention. Although açaí
naturally exists as a small purple berry, it is most commonly consumed in North
America as a component of blended fruit juices. When it first emerged on the
market, much of the açaí available was distributed through a company known as
MonaVie, which sold açaí juice as part of a mixed blend of juices on a multi-
level marketing platform—at a cost of $40 per bottle. Yes, you read that right:
For the same amount of money as would be needed to feed a family of four fresh
produce for a week, you could get a bottle of fruit juice. Since then, açaí has
found its way into numerous popular products, including smoothies, fruit juice
blends, weight-loss supplements, and Dr. Perricone’s recommended vehicle, as
açaí powder.
HOW MUCH FOR A BOTTLE OF AĈAÍ?
How much fresh produce could you get for the price of a bottle of mixed aĈaÍ juice? Here’s a breakdown,
based on a local grocery store’s prices.
AÇAÍ VERSUS YOUR LOCAL GROCERY STORE
So, for the same cost as a single bottle of blended aĈaÍ juice, you could get not only enough produce to
feed a family of four for a week but also substantially more nutrition, including more vitamins A and C,
potassium, folate, and fibre, than you would in a whole bottle of the juice.
AÇAÍ: THE NUTRITION
For all the hype surrounding aĈaÍ’s potential to influence our health or our
weight, one would expect it to have a fairly attractive nutrition profile. In reality,
however, we know very little about aĈaÍ, other than what we can glean from a
handful of journal articles and industry-sponsored websites, much of which
relates to blended juices that are not pure aĈaÍ. According to Sambazon, a
supplier of aĈaÍ juice (Sambazon is short for Saving and Managing the Brazilian
Amazon), an 8 ounce serving of AĈaÍ: The Original juice (which is made from
aĈaÍ berry juice, agave sweetener, and lime juice—more on agave later)
provides 140 calories’ worth of energy, along with 3 grams of fat and 1 gram of
protein.4 Of its 28 grams of carbohydrate, a single gram is from fibre (by
comparison, we should be aiming for 25 to 38 grams per day), and 24 grams is
sugar. Aside from the slightly higher fat content, these numbers are about the
same as you would find in any berry or grape juice—in other words,
unremarkable.
As for vitamins and minerals, Sambazon’s juice provides 6% of our daily
vitamin A needs (by comparison, a carrot will give you a whole day’s worth of
vitamin A), 6% of your calcium, and 4% of your daily iron needs. It also
provides 75 mg of potassium, which is about the same as you’d get in a bite of
banana. In other words, if there is something special about aĈaÍ, it’s not its
vitamins and minerals.
Enter the antioxidants. According to popular theory, the health benefits of
fruits, vegetables, and other plant foods are derived less from vitamins and
minerals and more from compounds known as polyphenols and flavonoids,
which are thought to act as antioxidants in our bodies. As the story goes, age,
pollution, and exposure to UV light, among other things, are associated with a
process known as oxidation in our bodies. This oxidation leads to the production
of free radicals, harmful compounds that are thought to damage our cells over
time, eventually contributing to everything from wrinkles to heart disease to
cancer.
Following that logic, anything that can slow down, stop, or reverse oxidation
and the production of free radicals in our bodies would be considered a possible
disease fighter. Makers of aĈaÍ products often claim that aĈaÍ is one of the most