I'm no fan of the term either. There's an argument to be made for describing nutrient-complete foods, but "superfood" is just imprecise and comes off sounding like marketing and pseudoscience. I...
I'm no fan of the term either. There's an argument to be made for describing nutrient-complete foods, but "superfood" is just imprecise and comes off sounding like marketing and pseudoscience. I also roll my eyes at "supermoon", so maybe anything with "super" is a problem.
Well, along with what @Wes stated, it's mostly just a marketing term that's been abused by those wanting to make a buck off of "healthy" foods. Not that foods labeled as 'superfood' are bad..but.....
Well, along with what @Wes stated, it's mostly just a marketing term that's been abused by those wanting to make a buck off of "healthy" foods. Not that foods labeled as 'superfood' are bad..but.. eating blueberries isn't going to extend your lifespan by 5 years.
And, it seems anything moderately healthy gets called a 'superfood' by those who need to call it such before they can eat it without feeling bad. Kind of like the term 'clean eating', which also doesn't mean anything (in that it means different things to different people and so can't be defined).
I guess I've just had it with dietary buzzwords as they seem to be used for crop that needs to be marketed so farms can make a buck. And companies plaster them all over the place to appeal to the "healthy" demographic, without actually being healthy. Drink this organic, non-GMO, clean superfood smoothie that's 1000 calories and has maybe 10% RDA of some vitamin!
I find it hilarious because 1000 calories of just about any meat has way more than 10% RDA of many vitamins and yet meat isn't ever labelled as a "superfood". It seems to be touted exclusively for...
I find it hilarious because 1000 calories of just about any meat has way more than 10% RDA of many vitamins and yet meat isn't ever labelled as a "superfood".
It seems to be touted exclusively for vegetables and fruits and as you have stated is an ephemeral concept that can mean any of the following:
an okay amount of some vitamin
mild anti-inflammatory properties
mild anti-oxidant properties
has some non-zero amount of fiber
is low calorie
probably doesn't but might claim to reduce/fight cancer
No problem. It annoys me, but I'm not losing hair over it (I hope). I think what saddens me the most is the fact that people are open to these marketing terms to such a damn degree without doing a...
No problem. It annoys me, but I'm not losing hair over it (I hope). I think what saddens me the most is the fact that people are open to these marketing terms to such a damn degree without doing a bit of diligence to check the claims. Have faith in God, if you want...but never have faith in marketing!
That said, after typing "shaky" in my previous comment I had the sudden urge to run out and gorge myself on mojo potatoes, so what the hell do I know??
Kelp is one of the healthiest superfoods you can buy, and now it's helping support families and fisheries whose livelihoods are changing. The recipes sound delicious too.
Kelp is one of the healthiest superfoods you can buy, and now it's helping support families and fisheries whose livelihoods are changing. The recipes sound delicious too.
I come from an area where red dulse is eaten. It's foraged rather than farmed. One of my coworkers, when he was a teen it was his job to gather dulse - he literally would just grab it from the...
I come from an area where red dulse is eaten. It's foraged rather than farmed. One of my coworkers, when he was a teen it was his job to gather dulse - he literally would just grab it from the beach where it washed up, then rinse it, dry it, and sell it.
Funny to see it becoming such a popular/trendy food lately! My friends used to tease me for eating it, telling me it was "old people food" like kippers or prunes.
I love kelp and sea kale, they are really good! Especially as a salad, with some vinegar, yum. But if we all would triple or quadruple our kelp consumption I'm a bit worried about possible side...
I love kelp and sea kale, they are really good! Especially as a salad, with some vinegar, yum. But if we all would triple or quadruple our kelp consumption I'm a bit worried about possible side effects - humans never evolved to eat seafood of this kind, and sea plants especially can be really bad in big numbers. And I'm saying it because I've talked to some people from a research institute for food concentrate industry while I've been working with a guy from there, a cross - institute project we've been doing on the topic of space food. He showed me a lot of ways to grow food on space stations his institute came up with, and I noticed none of the crops meant for consumption were aquatic plants. I've been reading an awful lot of science fiction for my whole life, and one trope I've seen constantly was the idea that aquatic plants are the best candidates to be grown in space, since they can filter the filth from the water, they don't have to support the stems, they grow much faster, they are more 0g tolerant thanks to the fact that they are surrounded by water, and so on. And even seeing the nautilus - shaped planter meant for greens I could think of how smaller it could be if it hosted aquatic plants instead, but alas, he showed me a lot of research, dating back to the USSR times, when ethics of human experiments never applied. They've been feeding people mainly aquatic-culture based diets for prolonged time, and most people became sick after a few months. Symptoms included inflammation, fever, random spots on the skin, general sickness, and so on. What they found out was these aquatic plants had complex organic stuff in them (proteins, aminoacids, something of that sort, biology is not my profile, so I could easily be wrong here, my memory is not perfect, somebody who knows it may know exactly what I'm talking about), and that stuff had been messing up the whole digestive system for these people. The conclusion was that while you can eat aquatic plants they can't be considered a suitable diet for people, and the idea of feeding space with aquatic plants never got any spotlight again.
Now, of course that's been done a long time ago, and we had no means to genetically modify plants for our needs, neither we had advanced medicine that may just solve this problem, but I have to wonder if it's safe to eat this stuff regularly, say a few times a week.
I wish we would drop the label "superfood" as it means nothing at best and can be misleading at worst.
I'm no fan of the term either. There's an argument to be made for describing nutrient-complete foods, but "superfood" is just imprecise and comes off sounding like marketing and pseudoscience. I also roll my eyes at "supermoon", so maybe anything with "super" is a problem.
Sorry for using a trite term! Duly noted...
Sorry if I came off harsh, by the way!
I just hadn't had (can I say that?) my mood-enhancing goji berries at the time. ;P
Haha all good!
Well... damn. Hahahaha.
Well, along with what @Wes stated, it's mostly just a marketing term that's been abused by those wanting to make a buck off of "healthy" foods. Not that foods labeled as 'superfood' are bad..but.. eating blueberries isn't going to extend your lifespan by 5 years.
And, it seems anything moderately healthy gets called a 'superfood' by those who need to call it such before they can eat it without feeling bad. Kind of like the term 'clean eating', which also doesn't mean anything (in that it means different things to different people and so can't be defined).
I guess I've just had it with dietary buzzwords as they seem to be used for crop that needs to be marketed so farms can make a buck. And companies plaster them all over the place to appeal to the "healthy" demographic, without actually being healthy. Drink this organic, non-GMO, clean superfood smoothie that's 1000 calories and has maybe 10% RDA of some vitamin!
I find it hilarious because 1000 calories of just about any meat has way more than 10% RDA of many vitamins and yet meat isn't ever labelled as a "superfood".
It seems to be touted exclusively for vegetables and fruits and as you have stated is an ephemeral concept that can mean any of the following:
No problem. It annoys me, but I'm not losing hair over it (I hope). I think what saddens me the most is the fact that people are open to these marketing terms to such a damn degree without doing a bit of diligence to check the claims. Have faith in God, if you want...but never have faith in marketing!
That said, after typing "shaky" in my previous comment I had the sudden urge to run out and gorge myself on mojo potatoes, so what the hell do I know??
Kelp is one of the healthiest superfoods you can buy, and now it's helping support families and fisheries whose livelihoods are changing. The recipes sound delicious too.
I come from an area where red dulse is eaten. It's foraged rather than farmed. One of my coworkers, when he was a teen it was his job to gather dulse - he literally would just grab it from the beach where it washed up, then rinse it, dry it, and sell it.
Funny to see it becoming such a popular/trendy food lately! My friends used to tease me for eating it, telling me it was "old people food" like kippers or prunes.
I love kelp and sea kale, they are really good! Especially as a salad, with some vinegar, yum. But if we all would triple or quadruple our kelp consumption I'm a bit worried about possible side effects - humans never evolved to eat seafood of this kind, and sea plants especially can be really bad in big numbers. And I'm saying it because I've talked to some people from a research institute for food concentrate industry while I've been working with a guy from there, a cross - institute project we've been doing on the topic of space food. He showed me a lot of ways to grow food on space stations his institute came up with, and I noticed none of the crops meant for consumption were aquatic plants. I've been reading an awful lot of science fiction for my whole life, and one trope I've seen constantly was the idea that aquatic plants are the best candidates to be grown in space, since they can filter the filth from the water, they don't have to support the stems, they grow much faster, they are more 0g tolerant thanks to the fact that they are surrounded by water, and so on. And even seeing the nautilus - shaped planter meant for greens I could think of how smaller it could be if it hosted aquatic plants instead, but alas, he showed me a lot of research, dating back to the USSR times, when ethics of human experiments never applied. They've been feeding people mainly aquatic-culture based diets for prolonged time, and most people became sick after a few months. Symptoms included inflammation, fever, random spots on the skin, general sickness, and so on. What they found out was these aquatic plants had complex organic stuff in them (proteins, aminoacids, something of that sort, biology is not my profile, so I could easily be wrong here, my memory is not perfect, somebody who knows it may know exactly what I'm talking about), and that stuff had been messing up the whole digestive system for these people. The conclusion was that while you can eat aquatic plants they can't be considered a suitable diet for people, and the idea of feeding space with aquatic plants never got any spotlight again.
Now, of course that's been done a long time ago, and we had no means to genetically modify plants for our needs, neither we had advanced medicine that may just solve this problem, but I have to wonder if it's safe to eat this stuff regularly, say a few times a week.
Better to stick with Soylent Red or Yellow if you can still find it.