About 3 years ago, started the current fad for superfoods.
These foods supposedly offer health benefits beyond basic nutrition, such as disease prevention.
As of today, about a hundred food ingredients have been put in the superfoods Hall of Fame, eg. pomegranate, acai, goji berries, etc., mostly due to their high antioxidant content in their whole foods original form.
The problem is that food manufacturers have largely capitalized on these superfoods in order to market such unhealthy products as sugary bars, energy drinks, juice blends and supplements, which include some undefined amount of superfoods, mostly processed into powders, concentrates, etc. These additions, along with the multiplication of all sorts of extraordinary health claims have spurred more and more skepticism.
Back in July, the European Commission cracked down on this phenomenon with the new European Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation: Now no food or beverage are allowed to be branded as superfoods without scientific backing. Claims are to be approved by the European Food Safety Authority.
In the US, there is currently no such legislation.
Meanwhile, let us keep checking ingredient lists thoroughly, and figure out what is in our food for real.
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