More Superfoods...

I first heard the term "superfood" during the HABIT study that we discussed in Beating the Dementia Monster.  It was the education module, and we were learning about diet.  The speaker referred to avocados as one of a set of superfoods.   I've been hearing about superfoods ever since.

I'll say again that I'm not comfortable with the concept of food as medicine.  My perspective is to just say, don't eat poison -- foods that cause inflammation and oxidation, or that make it hard to control your weight.

I've seen a number of lists of superfoods, mostly lists of 10.  All of them include blueberries, and none of them include avocados.  Nevertheless, I love avocados, and I eat one a day.  Recently, I encountered a column claiming to be the definitive list of superfoods.  Is it?  You can make up your own mind.

You can read the article here.  It was originally published in Outside Magazine in 2016.

This article lists 21 "superfoods" in ascending order, discounting the first 9 as not so great.  That was OK with me, because I like the foods in the second half a lot more than those in the not-so-great first half (actually the first nine).  But still no avocados anywhere.

The author of the article was wisely circumspect about the concept of the superfood. 

A surprise:  Coffee is a superfood.  Yay!  It comes in at #9 (from the top), so in the good half.  But green tea is even better at #7.

I'd never thought of kimchi as a superfood, but I was happy to see it listed in the first half.  Amy loves kimchi, but I don't.

Surprisingly, almonds were in the lesser nine.  The lesser nine were (in order of not-so-great to better):

• gluten-free flour
• orange juice
• coconut oil
• chia seed
• kimchi
• sweet potatos
• almonds
• beets
• acai
  

And so (according to the article), in improving order, the real supefoods are:

• eggs
• tart cherry juice
• broccoli
• coffee
• apples
• green tea
• black beans
• dark chocolate
• red wine
• salmon
• turmeric
• blueberries

I think blueberries have topped every list I've seen.  Although I may have seen one that had black beans on top.

Regarding turmeric, I have followed the advice of one of our blog readers to get turmeric in my diet.

The article has an interesting graphic that puts these on a two-dimensional chart that ranks them both on a scale of how super they are and on a spectrum of "delicious" to "disgusting."  On their chart, I'd have put beets closer to disgusting, and I'd have raised broccoli a lot closer to delicious.