There Are No Super Foods
In the early 2000s, the pomegranate was the new super food. This antioxidant-rich miracle fruit was said to improve cardiovascular health, fight prostate cancer, and prevent Alzheimer’s disease. Soon, the refrigerators of most health conscious people contained POM Wonderful pomegranate juice in the funny, double bulb shaped bottle. (Juice, because have you ever tried to peel and eat a pomegranate? It’s really annoying.)
POM Wonderful, the company, was founded in 2002 by the billionaire couple Stewart and Linda Rae Resnick. The company made $12 million in 2003. By 2006 their earnings had jumped to $91 million. That’s a lot of pomegranate juice.
The labels on POM Wonderful claimed the juice was “full of antioxidants called phytochemicals.” The POM Wonderful website included a section called “Featured Scientific Studies” that claimed pomegranate juice helped with erectile dysfunction, reduced the length and severity of common colds, and slowed prostate tumor growth.
All that for a little bottle of juice. Sounds almost too good to be true.
That’s because it was. The studies proving these health claims were all funded by POM Wonderful. In February 2010 the FDA sent the company a warning letter about promoting the drink as if it were a drug, able to heal illness. In September of that year the Federal Trade Commission issued an administrative complaint against the company, saying it had made false and unsubstantiated claims.
Then, in May 2012 a judge ruled that the company's claims were deceptive, and issued a cease and desist order effective for 20 years. In January of 2015, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit said many of POM’s ads “mischaracterized the scientific evidence concerning the health benefits of Pom’s products ….”
So much for that super food.
The idea of a particular fruit, vegetable, pill, powder, or oil that promises to solve health problems is appealing. It’s especially seductive to those of us who are health conscious, who care about what we ingest.
The combination of an exotic-sounding fruit or ingredient with some scientific words is almost irresistible.
“This is it,” we think. “THIS will be the secret to my weight loss/anxiety/bad skin/improved fitness.”
There’s nothing wrong with pomegranates, or Brussels sprouts, or kale or coconut oil. However, there is something wrong with juicing and drinking one of these ingredients and deciding it’s the key to perfect health.
I write a lot about fitness and nutrition, and I’m usually the first one to jump on a fun new health bandwagon. Grass-fed, locally raised meat? Totally bought into that. Community supported agriculture? Yep. Paying attention to my gut bacteria by consuming kefir, kombucha, and sauerkraut? I make all three at home.
However, I’m also extremely skeptical. As a journalist, I look into where these health claims come from. I always check out who sponsored the study, and the sample size.
I think what we lose when a new ingredient or product comes along is a sense of the big picture. What makes us healthy, and what leads to real improvement, are repeated, daily habits. It’s eating a wide variety of vegetables and fruits every day, year after year. It’s exercising consistently, for years.
Making kombucha and kefir is fun, and it may lead to a transitory improvement in good bacteria, but the latest science shows it’s a diet rich in fiber—specifically from vegetables and fruits—that make the most difference in maintaining a healthy gut.
It’s the same at the gym. Pre- and post- workout powders and drinks may help somewhat, but they don’t come anywhere close to showing up every day, paying attention to your form, and working hard.
This all sounds like common sense, but it’s not consistent with how I see people behave. A neighbor who just started selling “health and wellness” products for a multi-level marketing company recently buttonholed another neighbor and began her pitch.
One of the products she described was a pre-workout chocolate flavored energy bar. She said it fools your body into thinking it’s been working out for 20 minutes while you’re sitting at home, so once you start working out you burn fat faster. I don’t have to read the label to know that’s baloney.
The more claims a product makes, the more suspicious you should be.
This doesn’t mean I’m going to stop trying new things to improve my health, fitness, and overall happiness. Meditation is a good example. There’s a fair amount of evidence—from reputable, well-designed studies—that meditation can improve your health and overall well-being. Two reasons why I’ve come to believe this may be true are: 1. Meditation is free and 2. It requires time, dedication, and commitment.
Nobody makes money if I sit down and meditate for 10 minutes. (Yes, I did buy the Headspace app, but it’s not necessary for the practice.) Nobody is telling me this is a quick, easy way to perfect health. It’s boring, time consuming, and strangely difficult.
Let’s use my homemade kombucha as another example. As this Washington Post article points out, the big health claims about kombucha are mostly unfounded. It’s likely the good bacteria in kombucha improves gut health, but that’s not entirely known. A better strategy for good gut health is plenty of fiber via vegetables.
So, if I don’t believe kombucha is the secret to long life and happiness, why do I drink it?
One, because I like the way it tastes. I don’t drink soda or juice, and I mostly avoid alcohol Sunday through Thursday. Kombucha is much healthier than soda or beer, but I get the same carbonation and interesting taste. It’s a perfect drink for me around 3pm, when I’m a little hungry but want to avoid snacking.
Second, I get a kick out of fermenting things at home. I like that I know exactly what is in each bottle of kombucha, and I love that each bottle is almost free. There’s a great deal of satisfaction that goes along with opening a homemade bottle of lime-strawberry flavored carbonated kombucha.
The problem is not the ingredient, but the claims made by those selling it.
As you continue on your health journey, be aware there are no magic potions for improved health or performance. You can’t detox or cleanse away months and years of bad habits, and results come from hard work, not an ingredient or product.
