Forget the Superfoods

How many times in the past have you read about the latest "superfood"? There have been loads of different fruits, vegetables and more that have been declared to be better in some way than other foods over the years. But what does it mean, and can it be true?

Broccoli, blueberries, watercress, chia and eggs are just a few but depending on what it is that someone has decided is "super", the list is much much longer.

I remember a while ago that tomatoes were suddenly determined to be super, mainly because of their quantities of a certain nutrient called lycopene. Now it's true that they do have a high content of lycopene when compared to some of the other foods that contain it, but how many of your hunter-gatherer ancestors had access to tomatoes in the wild! They were only really available in parts of South America, and were much smaller than the fruits we recognise today.

So, my point is, if lycopene was an essential nutrient in large quantities for human health, where did pre-agricultural humans get it from? They had the same genes as you and me with the same nutritional needs, and the diet they ate kept them free of chronic disease, so how did they stay well without tomatoes? Or any other superfoods for that matter?

The answer is, many people would never have eaten tomatoes. And those that just happened to live where they grew would have only eaten them for a few weeks out of every year when the fruit was ripe. The rest of the time they would of eaten whatever else they could find that was "in season" at that point. And they thrived.

Forget about superfoods, and just think about food instead. Think of all the ways you can eat real organic plants, roots and fruits. No vegetable or fruit should be favoured or valued over another...they're all good! Variety keeps it interesting, is what your ancestors would have had, and fits perfectly with how the human genome evolved.