We have all heard it. Superfoods. The latest and greatest way to become healthy and live longer. All the hype that comes with superfoods can lead one to believe they can cure just about anything, whether it be by popping a blueberry or downing some acaí in their fruit smoothie. Truth is though, that’s a lie. There are no superfoods. Only food.
Today, America is the fattest it has ever been, and with this knowledge, there comes the determination to change. Enter in the health craze era that has attracted so many willing souls. Now I won’t say that this crazy train of nutrition is B.S., but I will say that there is a vast amount of information that is false and often times only tells people what they want to hear. This generation is all about immediate gratification with little to no work, so how nice that there are these magical foods that automatically make you healthy. Only problem is, they don't.
The science that is involved in the effectiveness of superfoods does not add up to all the benefits that are so explicitly advertised. When these foods are tested in the lab, scientists can only get such amazing results by using an insanely high amount of each food, which is not only difficult to obtain in a normal diet, but truly outlandish. Even procuring a fraction of the advantages that each food offers would mean constantly consuming that food, which would go against the widely accepted idea that you must have a varied and balanced diet to ensure that you stay truly healthy. Not to mention the fact that most of the results yielded come from rats and cannot be proven to work the same or even at all in humans.
So why do we still go out and spend our hard earned cash on something that isn't even proven to help us that much? Because we want to fix things. We feel like we have found a quick and easy way out of a horrible situation that plagues us. When we hear that something will help us and it requires minimal effort, we are quick to go try it, and often times convince ourselves that it works. But when it comes to superfoods, there is no concrete definition. Meaning, we can say that any food is super and will do X and Y for our health, but in the end, it’s not that simple. No single food is going to make you a healthy person. It’s not fair to bash other healthy foods because they don't carry the title of being super. Superfoods may have a good amount of nutrition, but so do many other foods. Everything should be consumed in moderation - even cake. When we will fill our meals with a variety of foods full of color, fruits, and vegetables, we will not only be healthy, but we will be happy as well.
