Every now and again headlines fill with some new, invariably exotic, fruit, vegetable or seed branded a super-food. Super-foods are supposed to be extra good for you, super-fantastic, life-prolonging, cancer-reducing, mega-nutritious super-duper ingredients.
Don’t believe the hype.
Some of them contain a lot of vitamins, minerals, amino acids or enzymes, or are chock-full of anti-oxidants. That’s all great. Does it mean that you should spend a lot of money and eat a lot of that food? No.
Super is eating a variety of foodstuffs, staying high on veg and fibre, eating all the colours of the rainbow, and not overdoing any one element. No one ingredient is a life-saver or life-changer. Broccoli alone will not cure depression; consuming cancer-improving amounts of turmeric is almost impossible; goji berries are unlikely to help you pass a stressful exam. Behind most super-food claims is a lot of dodgy science and misunderstood biology.
But beetroot is amazing. You should definitely eat a lot of that.
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