Koff’s Superfood Picks of 2010:
Ingredients
Foods that Fight Disease and Promote Wellness
By Ashley Koff, RD
Superfoods. We might all nod our heads at his term or use it in a conversation or even on a product package. However,
despite the fact that the word “superfoods” is
widely used, there really is no one universal
working definition. So this article will begin
with defining superfoods and then will highlight several that stand out, give some examples of products that contain superfoods,
and finally, conclude with the future of
superfoods.
Defining a Superfood
A quick online search for a definition of
“superfoods” yields many varying and vague
explanations. According to the Oxford Dictionary, “a food considered to be especially
nutritious or otherwise beneficial to health
and well-being” was referred to as “super” in
documents from 1915, 1949 and in 2002. But
then what did they mean by “especially nutritious”—can one adjective be used to define
another?
Another online definition adds to the confusion, stating that a superfood “may have a
high phytonutrient content”—may? As in
could or could not? Or, as noted on
About.com, in order to define a food as
“super” it should have more than one of the
following characteristics: low calories, substantial omega-3s, high fiber content, rich in phy-tochemicals, high vitamin and mineral
content, and low in unhealthy ingredients.
As one tries to sort out what is and is not a
superfood, a few thoughts occur. First, don’t
all these explanations sound like the charac-
teristics of everyday good or nutritious foods?
And on the flip side, what about foods that
meet several of the categories above but are
chemically produced—shouldn’t this factor
into what really makes a food “super?” Can a
food whose production leaves soil or air worse
for wear, or depletes precious resources, be a
superfood?
