Walk into any grocery store, and you will be bombarded with healthy choices – or so their food packaging says. In recent years, “superfoods” such as quinoa and chia have exploded in popularity, lauded for their rich nutritional content. But alongside these self-purported nutritional claims come high prices, especially compared to alternative options such as brown rice, flax seeds, and lentils. Certain “superfoods” are seen everywhere on supermarket shelves until about three years later, when they fade into irrelevance as new ones emerge. Surely this is not due to a sudden decline in their health impact, so what gives? Are “superfoods” worth the money, or are they just another deceptive marketing gimmick?
The term “superfoods” gives off the impression that any food with this title must be superior to others, brimming with nutritional content that other foods can only aspire to contain, and the term is often accompanied by wild claims such as “controls blood sugar”, “weight control”, and even “prevent cancer”. Their packaging and advertisements paint the image of these foods being of exotic origin, their exalted benefits a hidden secret to the world up until this very moment. “Healthy” fad diets – diets that focus on certain food items and/or avoid other food items – are all the rage these days, but the reality is that “superfoods” are just a part of a greater movement to fetishize the food we eat, and food companies are in a frenzy to capitalize off of this opportunity. A 2015 Nielson study found that consumers are willing to pay more for foods that they perceive as healthy, meaning there is a lot to be gained by using labels such as “superfood”.
The problem, however, is that no one knows what “superfoods” actually means. In Australia, Canada, and United States, the term “superfoods” is unregulated and meaningless – without an enforced definition of what actually qualifies as a “superfood”, the food companies are technically free to put this label onto their products to hoodwink well-intentioned consumers. In this scenario, “superfood” gives no insight whatsoever into the product’s nutritional content. The European Union, on the other hand, more tightly regulates the use of the word and does not allow a company to claim their product is a “superfood” unless it is proven with authorized scientific evidence. This does not mean a single scientific study makes a claim valid and legitimate – the integrity of science relies on reproducibility and reliability, and legitimate claims are built upon well-designed studies .
But this certainly does not stop the media from sensationalizing scientific findings to the general public. Food companies will play right along, because big health claims mean big money; it should therefore come as no surprise that many fad diets are based only on isolated studies, and are not practical or necessarily beneficial in the real-world setting. The unfortunate reality is that on supermarket shelves, good marketing often overshadows good science.
The consumer’s fixation on “healthy” food choices, and the assumption that self-proclaimed “superfoods” are more nutritious options, can mean a less varied diet that overlooks the nutritional quality of other, less costly foods. In response to the rising popularity of “superfoods”, Harvard’s T. H. Chan School of Public Health recommends consumers seek out a “Super Plate” instead , which promotes diverse food choices and a balanced diet.
In short, consumer beware – while self-proclaimed “superfoods” may certainly provide health benefits and nutritional content, in many countries the word simply has no meaning and no regulation. Food companies have a vested financial interest in making consumers pay more for what they perceive as healthy, and the government’s ability to intervene is limited as long as the definition remains ambiguous.
By Jim Chen
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