Superfood Skepticism

So here you are, going along in life, feeling good that you are eating bananas everyday to get that fruit in (after all, they're pretty cheap and available all year long). But then all of sudden, you hear blueberries are a superfood, and you think "I've been eating the wrong fruit all along!" You ditch the bananas and start eating blueberries instead. If you've had an experience like this one, you are not alone. 

But let's pause for a moment and consider how messed up it is  that you were actually made to feel bad about eating any kind of fruit? And how does something like that get so high profile that everyone but you seemed to know they should be eating blueberries instead of bananas? Two words: money and marketing. 

Every food producer wants to expand sales, and health claims sell. But to put a health claim on a food package, the FDA requires research to support health claims. Food producers fund the research to support the health claims they make about their foods (yes, you read that right). As you might guess, this research is often poorly conducted. misleading and prioritizes profit rather than people's health.  A one-year review of this type of research found that out of 168 such studies, 156 showed biased results that favored the food producer's interests (insert shock face here).

Here is an excellent example of how absurd the whole process can get (excerpt is from this Atlantic article):

All of this explains why Royal Hawaiian Macadamia Nut petitioned the FDA in 2015 to allow it to say in advertisements that daily consumption of macadamias—along with eating a healthy diet—may reduce the risk of heart disease. The 81-page petition cited several studies done in humans, one of them funded by the Hershey Company, which sells chocolate-covered macadamias. The FDA ruled that it would permit a qualified health claim for macadamia nuts with this precise wording: “Supportive but not conclusive research shows that eating 1.5 ounces per day of macadamia nuts, as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol and not resulting in increased intake of saturated fat or calories may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease.” Can a statement this cumbersome help sell macadamia nuts? Definitely, with a little help from the press: “Go nuts, folks! FDA declares macadamia nuts heart healthy.”

Once the so-called research is "out there," the media just runs with it. I'm not sure they really care if the information is legit - they just know it will get eyeballs and clicks, which means more money for them. Everybody wins (except the consumer)! So keep this in mind the next time you feel like  eating bananas instead blueberries, or peanuts instead of macadamia nuts. Who knows? Maybe bananas and peanuts will be the next superfoods ;)