Detox – Part 3 What is a Superfood?
What is a Superfood?
Let’s pay attention to a particular food group, and call it a superfood. One particular food that has been given the moniker of one of the best superfoods is broccoli.
Now, while broccoli does help the liver out it is not a hero food as it also contains cyanide. All brassica’s, cabbage, sprouts and mustard plants contain cyanide. So here we have a superfood that has a poison in it that will kill you. The idea of only eating certain so-called superfoods is fraught with danger as a number of major vitamins and minerals will then be lacking from your meal plan.
The key is to ensure that your body function as it should is to enjoy a healthy lifestyle, not to smoke and to enjoy a balanced diet. The often talked about flagship of diets is the Mediterranean diet, which includes meats, fish, olive oil, cheeses, salads, wholegrain cereals, nuts and fruits. This combination provides all of the protein, amino acids, unsaturated fats, fibre, starches, vitamins and minerals to keep the body and your immune system functioning as it should.
Why then are we so focused on detoxing?
Is it because historically old religious practices including fasting and purification and these behaviours are ingrained into our psyche? Or is it because traditional Western Medicine has let has us down in treating diseases that we may believe we have. Maybe our focus on science and the movement away from spiritual belief has turned the spiritual fasting of the old times to a need to fast from environmental toxins.
The detox industry is a multi-billion dollar industry where people who are after a quick fix from their food sins will always be willing to pay to have their sins fasted away. Marketing of detox programs often relies on the use of people with credentials or stars of the screen, sport or music.
One of the issues here is that the consumer often makes decisions based on ignorance or by placing blind faith in others - if it seems likely to happen then it must be true. People assume that if there is some research behind the product then it must be true and it must work.
If it has a celebrity endorsement then even better as it must really work. If it is endorsed then it must be better than one that is not.
I will leave the closing words though to Emeritus Professor Edzard Ernst; “Ask trading standards what they’re doing about it. Anyone who says, ‘I have a detox treatment’ is profiting from a false claim and is by definition a crook. And it shouldn’t be left to scientists and charities to go after crooks."