SUPER FOOD

SUPER FOOD

Google ‘diet’ and you’ll get nearly half-a-billion results in less time than it takes to swallow. There are diets that tell you to count calories and diets that tell you to focus on food groups. There are diets that tell you to avoid carbs and diets that tell you to carbo-load. There are diets that tell you to eat a handful of blueberries, or a handful of walnuts, or that you should load all your foods with lemon juice, cinnamon or turmeric. Eggs, potatoes and full-fat dairy are out, then they’re back in.

“The super foods fad is yet another sign of the never-ending search for a magic bullet to solve problems,” she says. “Such thinking, which ignores the multi-factorial nature of diet-related health problems, is probably the greatest myth.”

“Then it achieves a health halo and it sells, and you see this with heavily sweetened breakfast cereals,” Stanton says. “I get concerned when people find that something’s good then they stick it in their Coco Pops.” Stanton points out that she is yet to find an Australian deficient in the sort of nutrients that go into fortified cereals.

Despite Stanton's objection to painting those so-called 'superfoods' as a nutritional panacea, she supports efforts to find new, environmentally sustainable sources of food as part of a balanced diet. Marine ecologist Pia Winberg from Venus Shell Systems offered one option at the BBC Future World-Changing Ideas Summit, when she presented a convincing argument that seaweed could become a major component of food in the future.

Full Article From BBC