Thursday, November 12, 2015

Is there such a thing as Superfood?







I think we can safely say that apart from eating our own heirloom, non GM chemical free, organic home grown vegetables we are risking a load of health problems. Well according the World Health Organization anyway.

The WHO recently did a survey testing over 940 different substances and found only one of them to NOT be a cancer concern. If you are wondering which chemical is safe, it’s called “Caprolactam” and is found mainly in yoga pants. I’m still not sure if this is meaning wearing the pants or eating them is the safe way and probably never will. The WHO has also been busy with presentations, some of them more successful than others; the bacon scare comes to mind… Here’s a recent report from unaustralian.net that puts an interesting point across humorously. 

Two pigs
Last week the World Health Organisation retracted a study that revealed a connection between bowel cancer and bacon after an alert staff member discovered that the doctor presenting the results was actually two pigs dressed up in a long white lab coat.

“The presentation he gave was certainly impressive with lots of graphs and pie charts,” said Dr Hermione Trotter, head of ontological research at WHO. “No-one questioned his credentials because he had a stethoscope around his neck. We were on the verge of recommending a worldwide ban on bacon and sausages when one of our secretaries noticed something out of the ordinary.”
“I happened to see a little curly tail poking out from the back of his lab coat”, said UN stenographer Penny Stencil. The bogus bacon study follows on from a similar attempt to discredit chicken nuggets carried out by seven chickens dressed up as an expert on heart disease.
“We’ve stepped up our screening procedures and any doctor wearing anything longer than a poncho will be x-rayed on the way into the building,” said WHO security chief Warren Truncheon. “You’ll have to excuse me; I’ve got to go to a lecture on the dangers of horse meat that’s currently being delivered by a doctor with a really long face.”

Alternatives
It just goes to show that we can’t believe everything we hear about food and diet. There have been a long list of “Superfoods” over the years and as one comes on the market to convince us to eat more healthily to counteract the ‘harmful’ foods. 

Foods that have been elevated to superfood status in recent years include those rich in antioxidants (such as beta-carotene, vitamins A, C, E, flavanoids and selenium) and omega-3 fatty acids. They come and go with marketing, well except chocolate (yes that is a superfood some of you will be pleased to know) then there are blueberries, goji berries, oily fish, wheatgrass, pomegranate juice, green tea, broccoli, garlic and beetroot. The next big thing will be products from the fast growing Moringa tree native to South Asia and now found throughout the tropics. Its leaves have been used as part of traditional medicine for centuries. You will soon see products with the tree leaves as an ingredient promising good health. You heard it here first.

Superfood
There is no official definition of a "superfood" and the EU has banned health claims on packaging unless supported by scientific evidence. But that hasn't stopped many food brands from funding academics to research the health benefits of their product.
The superfood trend exploits the fact that healthy lifestyle choices, including diet, can reduce our risk of chronic diseases like heart disease, stroke and cancer. The food industry wants to persuade us that eating some foods can slow down the ageing process, lift depression, boost our physical ability, and even our intelligence. Many of us want to believe that eating a single fruit or vegetable containing a certain antioxidant will zap a diseased cell.

The problem is that most research on superfoods tests chemicals and extracts in concentrations not found in the food in its natural state. Garlic, for example, contains a nutrient alleged to help reduce cholesterol and blood pressure. But you'd have to eat up to 28 cloves a day to match the doses used in the lab. A friend of mine says she had two cloves a day for a week and it made her really aggressive so you’d need to avoid her if she ate 28 of them.

Fantasy
While the concept of a "miracle food" remains a fantasy, it's pretty well-established that obesity and alcohol are the two most common causes of major long-term illness.  Diet plays an important role in our health, but there is concern that too much focus on individual foods may encourage unhealthy eating.

"No food, including those labelled 'superfoods', can compensate for unhealthy eating," explains Alison Hornby, a dietician and spokesperson for the British Dietetic Association (BDA). "All unprocessed food from the major food groups could be considered 'super'. All these foods are useful as part of a balanced diet.”

"If people mistakenly believe they can 'undo' the damage caused by unhealthy foods by eating a superfood, they may continue making routine choices that are unhealthy and increase their risk of long-term illness."

Dieticians avoid the term "superfood" and prefer to talk of "super diets", where the emphasis is on a healthy, balanced diet, rich in fruit and vegetables and wholegrain foods.
So again, it’s conclusive evidence that growing and eating our own veggies is a healthy pursuit.

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