The Super-Rubbish of Superfoods

A few months ago, a cousin living abroad messaged asking for an Indian diet plan. I told her she doesn’t need one, but she anyway found an Indian site that apparently "reverses" diseases with food (that itself should have been a big red flag) and then sent me an exotic, expensive meal plan that she had been prescribed, full of items like chia, quinoa, kale and other new age, yoga asana-like meme foods. Seriously !

A similar thing happened a month or so ago. Someone who runs a health site asked me to contribute an article. Out of curiosity, I checked out the site and found articles on superfoods like "kale", etc. That was my cue to say sorry.

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Superfoods are foods that are supposed to miraculously improve your health, but keep changing color depending on the fashion of the day. A few years ago, it was all about quinoa and chia. Then kale. At some point, arugula. Weird kinds of berries including goji berries. Turmeric. Strawberries and blueberries. The names and lists keep changing faster than the conspiracy theories behind the origin of the Covid-19 virus. For example, the India Today list from 2015 is different from the Economic Times list for 2021, those superfoods not making the cut looking like Big Boss losers that no one really misses or remembers after two days.

It's not a recent phenomenon. The Roots of Ayurveda, a book by Dominic Wujastyk that traces the history of Ayurveda through the ages describes how garlic became a superfood in the middle of the last millennium and then how the fruit of the poppy plant (opium) became part of virtually every doctor's armamentarium in the 16th to 19th centuries (though once you ingest an opium preparation, every food will anyway look, taste and feel like a superfood).

If you like kale, by all means go for it. If turmeric incites your passion, then sure, have it. If chia seeds tickle your fancy and make you happy, go ahead. But that would be for the joy of having that particular food item, not because you believe these are "superfoods”, whose intake will suddenly and magically make you healthier.

Websites and advertisements and articles in the “entertainment” or similar supplements of even serious newspapers keep coming out with these superfood lists depending on the influencer and the writer. All of them follow the same pattern and use a combination of the words below to describe the advantages of these so-called superfoods.

• Nutrient dense
• Antioxidant
• Immune booster
• Detoxifying (as if our body has toxins that accumulate and need to be purged - this only happens if you can't shit or piss as a medical condition - toxins don’t build up in normal individuals).
• Increased energy and vitality (more ReVitals?)
• Anti-cancer

A typical statement describing a superfood will usually sound like this, "the poppy berry (I've just made this up) is an amazing nutrient dense superfood that boosts immunity while flooding the body with antioxidants, removing toxins without adding calories, increasing energy and vitality and preventing cancer".

And this problem is not just restricted to nirvana and sinewy body promoting sites.  Even websites like WebMD and Harvard Health, which should really know better, have lists of superfoods…which can then make you question the veracity of the rest of the stuff on those sites.

But the problem is really with us, isn’t it? We all want a magic bullet to bite, that one thing that will magically make us healthier, or help us lose weight or control our diabetes or hypertension or our high LDL levels or prevent cancer or give us immunity against Covid-19…a bullet that the big guns (companies and influencers) are able to exploit so beautifully.

And they are so experienced at making you feel inadequate, as if by not partaking of these superfoods, you are doing something terribly wrong and neglecting your body. The guilt trip then gets you to spend money, by buying these superfoods and change your eating patterns, instead of just focusing on a balanced plant-based sensible eating plan while keeping the calorie intake in check.

There is no such thing as a superfood. No single food item can make you suddenly healthy. What does help is eating vegetables and fruits and avoiding ultra-processed foods with some form of calorie restriction. To repeat, a balanced, predominantly plant-based diet is pretty much all that you need. And in some instances, supplementation with vitamin B12, vitamin D, protein, creatine, omega-3, etc., depending on your specific circumstances, something that I will explore in the future. That’s it.

Unfortunately, sensible plans are not really glamorous. Between someone who told you to add avocado and walnut and blueberry to your meals as against an apple or chikoo or bajra, who would you be more inclined to follow?

Having a healthy balanced diet unfortunately needs work. Making sure you don't overeat or go overboard with food also needs work. Physical activity, which is actually a magic pill, also needs work, which 80% of us are not even willing to try.

What is your matka here? Simple. If you find any food item that has words like "immunity", "detox", "antioxidant", "nutrient-dense", in their packaging or advertising, raise your eyebrows like Jeeves, give a half smirk that says you know better, drop it and walk away.

And by the same token, the moment any person, whether it be a doctor or a dietician or nutritionist or health influencer or trainer or just about anyone who fancies themselves as an expert on diet and nutrition brings up the word “superfood”….BE A SKEPTIC AND QUESTION…find out if this person is truly knowledgeable and quotes research from peer-reviewed papers published in reputable journals that can be found on Pubmed, or is just regurgitating the same nonsense using the same rubbish buzzwords like antioxidant, detox and immunity, that are found in the lay press and on popular websites…in which case…RUN AWAY.

Have a good and healthy and superfood free, but balanced and physically active Sunday.

This version was posted in the TOI