When I was originally creating Superfood Snacks, I intended to do little more than collect a few recipes for very good foods, and add a bit of information about each of those foods.
However, in the course of writing the book several themes emerged. Superfoods seem to have a few things in common. They often have very strong colours, very strong and often bitter flavours, and the ability to survive in hostile environments.
Nutriments and healing factors
You are probably aware that there is a range of essential nutrients that our bodies must have in order to build and repair cells. These are the proteins, vitamins, minerals, fats and carbohydrates. I will call these the "building blocks". Whilst there is some debate as to which of these is the most important and how they should be balanced, everyone agrees we must have them.
However, there is a range of chemicals in foods of which we are less aware. They are regarded as non-essential because they are not part of building the cells themselves, however our bodies do still seem to need them. I will use the term "healing factors" to cover this group of apparently non-essential nutriments that includes phytochemicals, hormones and enzymes. Plants produce these chemicals to protect themselves from a range of environmental hazards which fall into three major groups, sun protection, protection against parasites, fungus's, bugs and predators of all descriptions, and factors that allow them to neutralise toxins in soils. When we eat these chemicals we may inherit that protection.
Colour and flavour
So back to superfoods. A vast proportion of the foods that have been emerging under the title superfoods have strong vibrant colours and strong, often bitter flavours.
The colour pigments that create the strong colours and bitter flavours indicate the presence of these chemicals that make up part of the survival mechanism of the plant.
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| Turmeric (image from Wikipedia) |
We are learning that although these pigments are not part of the building blocks of the human body, they are nonetheless absolutely essential to our own survival systems, helping us recover if anything goes wrong. The pigments like the curcurmin in turmeric, anthocyanins in red berries, carotenes in carrots, lycopene in tomatoes, betalains in beetroot, all help us manage "unwelcome guests" in our bodies, ranging from viruses to parasites through to chemicals, heavy metals and radiation toxicity.
Wild grown
However, it is these very pigments that we have been breeding out of modern foods. The second theme that emerged while I was researching superfoods relates to the plant's level of "wildness". It started to become apparent that superfoods tend to be from plants that have not been highly bred. These were the plants that self-seed or spread with gay abandon no matter what we do to them, and that grow true from their own seeds. Dandelions are a superfood, and as anyone with a lawn knows, they can survive just about anything. Coriander is a superfood, and if you have ever grown it you know that you plant your first crop, allow one plant to go to seed, and you will have coriander all over your garden next year. These plants are really hardy with very powerful self-protection capabilities, and these are the very plants that seem to help us become really hardy and give us very powerful self-protection capabilities.
My growing suspicion was confirmed when I came across an article by a group in New Zealand researching heritage apples. All apples are not equal. This study has shown some interesting differences
between heritage apples and modern apples.
http://treecropsresearch.org/montys-surprise/
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| Monty's Surprise |
One such heritage apple is Monty's Surprise. The article tells us that Monty's Surprise has 3.4 times the amount of phenolics in the skin and 5.9 times the amount in the flesh compared to a domestic supermarket apple. One Monty's Surprise is worth four supermarket apples!
They go on to state that even roadside apples that have grown from a discarded apple core, whilst not growing true to the parent apple, are still found to have these higher nutritional levels. The image above was taken from
http://treecropsresearch.org/montys-surprise/ . This site has some excellent information on apples as an anti-cancer food, and is doing extensive work on preserving heritage foods.
Future research
There is some independent medical research into phytochemicals, but it is patchy at best. Of the 5000 or more phytochemicals we know about very few of them.
We know about the bright red betalains in beetroot and we know that these seem to be good for the liver. We know
about the yellows, oranges and scarlet reds found in marigolds, carrots and tomatoes,
and we are learning that these carotenes are good for sun induced diseases, particularly those of the eyes such as macular degeneration and cataracts. We
know about the anthocyanins found in all the purple coloured plants, and there
is a long tradition of using these in the treatment various cancers. Recently we
have learned about another red, resveratrol, a pigment found on the skins of grapes
to protect the grape against fungus. It is showing a lot of promise for cardiovascular
health.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Stay tuned, there is a lot more to come. Until we do know more, there is
one key we should apply to our diet. We should eat the maximum possible variety
of strong coloured and strong flavoured food, as wild grown and wild seeded as
possible, so that we are covering all our bases.
