Sometimes it may seem that every other ad online is for the latest and greatest so-called "superfood" that will help you slim down, tone up, reverse aging and fight disease. While these claims are wildly blown out of proportion there is some veracity to the philosophy that some foods are simply healthier for you than others. What defines a superfood may depend on your dietary needs and objectives. No food, however, no matter how "super," can stand alone or replace a complete and well-rounded healthy diet.
Medical Definition
The truth is there is no such thing as a "superfood" in the medical community. The term is more an advent of advertorial culture, where advertisements disguise themselves as instructive information, than anything medically studied or identified. Health-related websites, celebrity doctors on TV and dieticians may suggest superfoods but your doctor is unlikely to.
Goal-Specific Superfoods
As registered dietician Nancy N. George put it in a presentation as part of the Ohio State University Extension Community Development program, what defines a superfood varies based on your goals in eating it. Food with properties particularly beneficial for losing weight may not be the same as for fighting cancer, and foods beneficial in improving athletic performance may not be the same as those for slowing the signs of aging.
Common Attributes
Common among all or most superfoods touted in the media are certain qualities of nutrient richness and density, meaning they provide a wide array of nutrients and possess them in high enough concentrations that you can eat less of them than other foods and still reap the same nutritional benefits. As such they are also frequently low in calories. Most superfoods discussed in the media are also high in disease-fighting antioxidants or other bioactive components. As Dr. Penny Kris-Etherton, a professor of nutrition at Penn State University, describes them, bioactive components are compounds not considered necessary for a nutritionally complete daily diet but provide certain specific health benefits. She names resveratrol, found in grape skins among other foods, as one such compound, with purported anti-aging properties.
Genetically-Modified Superfoods
An entirely different usage of the term "superfood" applies to food that has been genetically engineered in order to feed and nourish larger numbers of people with smaller quantities of food. As reported by Bob Grant in The Scientist, "biofortified" foods geared to fight micronutrient malnourishment in developing countries includes "Golden Rice" which provided more beta-carotene, the precursor to vitamin A, than standard rice. Others include antioxidant-enhanced tomatoes, calcium-boosted carrots and nutrient-enriched cassava. Regular cassava contains little nutrients yet provides more than 1/3 of the calories in the typical daily diet in some parts of Africa.
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