Food: Superfood — Toward a Definition

[Explor­ing Life] What is the def­i­n­i­tion of super­food? Cur­rently there is no spe­cific agree­ment on what the spe­cific qual­i­ties and char­ac­ter­is­tics of a super­food are. At the same time, it is obvi­ous that some types of food must have spe­cific nutri­tional ben­e­fits that other types of food do not have. The promise of super­foods seems to orig­i­nate in the belief that eat­ing foods that are deemed to be rich in var­i­ous nutri­ents are not only ben­e­fi­cial to our health, but also may be a form of nat­ural med­i­cine, or nutriceu­ti­cal, that also pos­sess med­i­c­i­nal ben­e­fits. The strength of this belief lies in a com­bi­na­tion of sci­en­tific evi­dence and anthro­po­log­i­cal stud­ies that reveal a low inci­dence of dis­ease in spe­cific com­mu­ni­ties. The hope of super­foods is in the poten­tial to change our basic assump­tions about food in order to har­mo­nize our eat­ing habits with prin­ci­ples of health, well­ness, and heal­ing.

Def­i­n­i­tions of Superfood

The fol­low­ing def­i­n­i­tions pro­vide a foun­da­tion for build­ing an under­stand­ing of superfoods:

1. Any food sup­posed to con­fer remark­able health ben­e­fits. [1] This def­i­n­i­tion serves to ele­vate spe­cific kinds of food deemed a super­food to hav­ing more sig­nif­i­cant nutri­tional ben­e­fits than oth­ers. The def­i­n­i­tion does not help us to clas­sify a food type as being a super­food or not. (Wiki­tionary 2009)
2. Super­food is a term some­times used to describe food with high phy­tonu­tri­ent con­tent that some may believe con­fers health ben­e­fits as a result. [2] This def­i­n­i­tion leads us toward iden­ti­fy­ing foods that pos­sess a high level of phy­tonu­tri­ent (chem­i­cal com­pounds nat­u­rally occur­ring in plants) as being a super­food, though the spe­cific nature of the phy­tonu­tri­ent con­tent as well as what pre­cisely con­sti­tutes a high level is not indi­cated. (Wikipedia 2009)
3. Super­foods are both a food and med­i­cine; they have ele­ments of both. They are a class of the most potent, super-concentrated, and nutrient-rich foods on the planet… Super­foods meet and exceed all our pro­tein require­ments, our vit­a­min and min­eral require­ments, gly­conu­tri­ent require­ments, essen­tial fatty acid require­ments, immune sys­tem require­ments, as so much more. (Wolfe 2009) [3] This def­i­n­i­tion equates a super­food with plants that con­fer the great­est health ben­e­fits on the planet.
4. A true def­i­n­i­tion of the word Super­food, would apply only to prod­ucts with a high nutri­tional den­sity and those that have suf­fi­ciently high lev­els of phy­to­chem­i­cals, min­er­als and vit­a­mins. True Super­foods should also be sourced eth­i­cally and sus­tain­ably, tak­ing into account the envi­ron­ment and all liv­ing things and I wouldn’t con­sider a food a true Super­food unless it was either organic or wild-crafted. This means that no pes­ti­cides or agro­chem­i­cals have been used, they should also be pack­aged in envi­ron­men­tally sound packaging.
5. Finally, true Super­foods food should have a his­tory of ther­a­peu­tic or func­tional use… have been uti­lized by their indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties for lit­er­ally hun­dreds of years. Due to the sym­bi­otic rela­tion­ship between plants and humans, that has evolved over mil­lions of years… are also eas­ily assim­i­lated by the human body. This ease of absorp­tion is an impor­tant point which should also be incor­po­rated into any definition. [4] This def­i­n­i­tion extends the mean­ing of super­food to include: a) eth­i­cal and sus­tain­able food sources; b) organic and wild-crafted plants; c) a his­tory of func­tional use in var­i­ous cul­tural con­texts; and d) ease of absorp­tion into the human body. In this sense a def­i­n­i­tion of a super­food must include its ori­gins, his­tor­i­cal, and cul­tural con­text, not merely its nutri­ent value.

What is Super­food?: Super­food is first and fore­most an emerg­ing con­cept that may have very sig­nif­i­cant poten­tial ben­e­fit to our health and well being. As an emerg­ing con­cept we must accept that some con­fu­sion is merely a nat­ural out­come of an idea that is in the very early stages of its devel­op­ment. The con­cept itself must be given life through a form of con­nected intel­li­gence. In other words, nutri­tional sci­ence alone can­not pro­vide a com­pre­hen­sive def­i­n­i­tion and sys­tem of clas­si­fi­ca­tion. To fully expand the con­cept requires the cre­ative insight of his­to­ri­ans, cul­tural anthro­pol­o­gists, and spir­i­tual lead­ers (e.g. shamans) from the indige­nous cul­tures them­selves. I believe that it is the his­tor­i­cal and cul­tural side of the def­i­n­i­tion that needs to be given the great­est amount of atten­tion, while nutri­tional sci­ence will even­tu­ally catch up.

Poten­tial Road­blocks: There are a num­ber of detri­men­tal influ­ences to the full emer­gence of a vibrant con­cep­tion of super­foods. Since our soci­ety is largely focused on mate­ri­al­ism and com­mer­cial profit, those cor­po­ra­tions that stand to lose from the adop­tion of super­foods will suc­cumb to their deep lev­els of inse­cu­rity and launch a counter-offensive. For exam­ple, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies, or what is often referred to as Big Pharma, will attempt to block and den­i­grate the emer­gence and adop­tion of super­foods. Since these com­pa­nies are often linked to and have sig­nif­i­cant mate­r­ial influ­ence over gov­ern­ment orga­ni­za­tions such as Health Canada and the FDA, we can­not trust our gov­ern­ment to openly and cre­atively par­tic­i­pate in the emer­gence of superfoods.

Con­sumer Respon­si­bil­ity: The aver­age con­sumer can­not merely rely on gov­ern­ment agen­cies and cor­po­ra­tions to do what is right and there­fore must take the respon­si­bil­ity for edu­cat­ing them­selves about what they should, and what they should not eat. If they fail to assume this respon­si­bil­ity, for what­ever rea­son, then they risk their own health and well being. Edu­ca­tional and aca­d­e­mic researchers can also embark on research projects that reveal the deeper nature of super­foods and make this infor­ma­tion pub­lic. In addi­tional, a new breed of med­ical doc­tors immersed in func­tional med­i­cine [5] also seem to be pro­vid­ing a new sys­tem of sup­port for super­foods and med­i­c­i­nal herbs. [6]

Apply­ing the Cur­rent Def­i­n­i­tion of a Superfood

How can the aver­age per­son deter­mine if a food is a super­food or not? How do we know with some degree of cer­tainty that the ben­e­fits being assigned to spe­cific super­foods are in fact real?

Is an organic blue­berry a super­food?: I could not find a def­i­n­i­tion or descrip­tion of super­food that would empower me to deter­mine for myself whether or not, for exam­ple, an organic blue­berry was a super­food or not. [7] In addi­tion, search­ing for a list of ideal super­foods is a hope­less task that involves sift­ing through thou­sands of lists each claim­ing to iden­tify key super­foods. [8] In all cases, there is no pre­cise infor­ma­tion or evi­dence that a food is super.

This should not, how­ever, lead to the judge­ment that super­foods do not exist or can never be defined with any degree of pre­ci­sion. It is sim­ply a reflec­tion of the fact that the con­cept of a super­food is still in its early stages of emer­gence, there­fore, con­fu­sion is a nat­ural and nor­mal out­come. How­ever, one of the more mer­cu­r­ial prob­lems is that is seems as though any­one can lay claim to being an expert in superfoods.

Smooth­ies: For exam­ple, the sim­ply idea of mak­ing a smoothie rich in super­foods has gained sig­nif­i­cant atten­tion, yet most of the infor­ma­tion is lim­ited to what ingre­di­ents to use. The idea is appeal­ing in that one smoothie per day can pro­vide a very sig­nif­i­cant amount of nutri­tion. Often these ingre­di­ents are a col­lec­tion of var­i­ous super­foods includ­ing bee pollen, hemp seed, blue-green algae, cacoa, cacoa nibs, maca, coconut water/oil/milk, aloe vera, and goji berries mixed with a base fluid and berries or greens. There are a num­ber of ques­tions that arise from this prac­tice however:

1. What spe­cific ingre­di­ents should be com­bined in a smoothie and why?
2. All food has inter­ac­tive prop­er­ties. How do these var­i­ous com­bi­na­tions of super­foods com­bined in a sin­gle smoothie react in phys­i­o­log­i­cal terms? What are the effects of this inter­ac­tion in human terms?
3. Is it pos­si­ble to “over­dose” on superfoods?
4. What evi­dence is there to sup­port demon­stra­tions of smoothie recipes that seem to thought­lessly com­bine super­foods under the assump­tion that more is bet­ter. [9]
5. What are the spe­cific long term effects of super­food smooth­ies on our health and well being?
6. Is it enough to sim­ply iden­tify super­foods from var­i­ous parts of the world, bring them into our homes, and begin eat­ing them in var­i­ous com­bi­na­tions and recipes?
7. Can any­one with a blender and bags of super­foods offer advice to oth­ers about how to use superfoods?
8. Should we be rely­ing more on natur­o­pathic and func­tional med­i­cine advo­cates for advice?

The ques­tions above do not deter from the poten­tial value of super­foods in our lives, how­ever, these ques­tions and many oth­ers must be addressed in order for the con­cept of a super­food to mature and gain cred­i­bil­ity sup­ported by con­crete and observ­able evidence.

Evolv­ing the Def­i­n­i­tion of Superfoods

Map­ping Our Assump­tions: A def­i­n­i­tion always embraces a set of assump­tions. When we assume some­thing with­out fully test­ing it in the light of evi­dence and expe­ri­ence we face the pos­si­bil­ity of mak­ing sig­nif­i­cant mis­takes. In the case of super­foods, one poten­tial mis­take lies in the adop­tion a dietary regime rich in pro­posed super­foods that, over the long term, may not have the intended out­come we assumed it would. Ulti­mately each of us must make the most informed deci­sion pos­si­ble. Some of the more impor­tant assump­tions I see in the emer­gence of super­foods are:

• Nat­ural, whole, non-GMO, organic plants are the most essen­tial and ben­e­fi­cial type of food on the planet;
• Processed, refined, and oth­er­wise human-manipulated food prod­ucts are not, in fact, not food in any mean­ing­ful sense the word. To call these prod­ucts food is a mar­ket­ing decep­tion, not a reality;
• There are spe­cific plant-based foods that are sig­nif­i­cantly richer in nutri­ents than oth­ers. In other words, some foods are more essen­tial to health and heal­ing than others;
• His­tor­i­cal and cul­tural expe­ri­ence with nat­ural plant-based foods is at least as impor­tant in under­stand­ing the value of a super­food as is the per­spec­tive of nutri­tional science;
• Cor­po­ra­tions that stand to lose prof­itabil­ity by the mass adop­tion of super­foods as a fun­da­men­tal source of nutri­tion and med­i­cine will oppose the devel­op­ment of super­foods. These cor­po­ra­tions, for exam­ple, include the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal indus­try and the vit­a­min pill-making industry;
• Agri-business invested in GMO devel­op­ment and chem­i­cal inter­ven­tion in the growth of crops will oppose the devel­op­ment of super­foods, since a super­food is by default one that orig­i­nates nat­u­rally in the earth;
• Locally grown organic non-GMO crops are a sig­nif­i­cantly bet­ter source of nutri­tion than fruits and veg­eta­bles pur­chased in a gro­cery store. Human health is there­fore depen­dent on the rise of a con­sumerism that pur­chases food directly from trusted local farmers;
• Indigien­ous cul­tures, less advanced in allo­pathic med­ical tech­nol­ogy have as much, if not more, to offer health and med­i­cine. Cul­tural bias and igno­rance is there­fore a poten­tially sig­nif­i­cant road­block to the adop­tion of food as medicine;
• Edu­ca­tional sys­tems must address health and well being in holis­tic terms. It should be man­dated that all schools must with­out excep­tion teach the weak­nesses and defi­cien­cies in our food sup­ply. More impor­tantly they must con­stantly teach new and emerg­ing ideas about food so that stu­dents emerge from their school­ing with a strong foun­da­tion in mak­ing informed choices about the food they eat;
• Eat­ing organic, non-GMO, chem­i­cally free, natural,locally-produced whole food must become a uni­ver­sal human right with pow­ers that over-ride cor­po­rate man­dates and gov­ern­ment subversion.

Impor­tance: The super­food move­ment is not merely a move­ment focused on defin­ing a spe­cific class of food, though this is an impor­tant goal. It is a move­ment about the cul­tural trans­for­ma­tion of our beliefs and tra­di­tions sur­round­ing the com­plex rela­tion­ships and inter­con­nec­tions that exist between food, the sur­vival of the earth, human health and well-being, med­i­cine and med­ical inter­ven­tion, and eth­i­cal cor­po­rate and gov­ern­ment initiatives.

Notes

1. Wiki­tionary: Super­food.
2. Wikipedia: Super­food.
3. Wolfe, David. Super­foods, 2009.
4. Are Your Super­foods Truly Super? Free Press Release, Jan 28, 2009.
5. The Insti­tute of Func­tional Med­i­cine defines func­tional med­i­cine as a form of per­son­al­ized med­i­cine that deals with pri­mary pre­ven­tion and under­ly­ing causes instead of symp­toms for seri­ous chronic dis­ease.
6. For exam­ple, Dr. Mark Hyman is a strong advo­cate of func­tional medicine.
7. For exam­ple, a Google search on the phrase is a blue­berry a super­food? reveals a list of 200,000+ links to sites that com­monly make the claim that a blue­berry is a super­food. Unfor­tu­nately, there is no pre­cise evi­dence that sup­ports the claim one way or another.
8. For exam­ple, a Google search on the phrase list of super­foods reveals a list of 350,000+ entries and a seem­ingly insur­mount­able num­ber of opin­ions of what an ideal super­food or list of super­foods is.
9. Though the intent of this video is obvi­ously good, it does raise ques­tions about com­bin­ing super­food ele­ments in what seem to be a hap­haz­ard man­ner guided by the under­ly­ing assump­tion that more is better.

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