Super Foods ... What are they?

What are Super Foods?

Super foods are foods that go beyond the norm in providing extra-ordinary health benefits, including preventing disease and increasing longevity.  These foods are packed with nutrients, antioxidants, vitamins, plant sterols, polyphenols or phytoestrogens to promote health and well-being.

The wonderful thing about these foods is that they are easy to find in any supermarket and in most cases, cost less to buy than most of the processed foods on the market.  I always advise increasing your intake of nutrient-rich foods in as natural a state as possible.  It doesn't make sense to me to have a food process all the nutrients out of it and then "enrich" it by adding nutrients back in.  (White enriched flour is the perfect example of this.  Whole grain wheat is much healthier for you, yet most people choose to buy white enriched flour products where they strip most of the vitamins and nutrients out of the wheat and then add some back in again.  Why not just eat the whole grain?)

In some ways, all fruits, vegetables, whole grains and food that is in its natural state can be considered super foods because they are high in natural nutrients and vitamins. 

But there are certain of these natural foods that are even better than that ... these foods are high in nutrients and antioxidants and research has found that many of these super foods are responsible for fighting many lifestyle diseases including heart disease, stroke, obesity and cancer.

That is what I find so exciting about superfoods ... there are many lifestyle diseases including obesity that respond extremely well to changes in your diet where you substantially increase the amounts of superfoods you eat.  There has been a lot of research talking about some superfoods that have been known to prevent cancer or to reduce the size of tumours which is very exciting.

I truly believe that our lifestyle of eating so much junk food and processed food and so little natural high-nutrient foods like fruits, vegetables and whole grains is at the root of much of our disease and ill-health, including obesity.  Our supermarkets are packed with "convenience" foods, but I don't know about you, but I don't find ill-health to be very "convenient"!  I would much rather expend a bit of effort now to eat healthy and exercise moderately and not have to pay the price for poor dietary choices in the future.  And I guarantee that anybody that eats unhealthily and doesn't exercise regularly is setting themselves up for future ill-health and increased risk of many lifestyle diseases including obesity, diabetes, heart disease, stroke and cancer.

And the funny thing is that when we eat healthy food, it tastes so much better than junk food! 

Or at least, that's what I've found.  Believe me, I have eaten more than my fair share of junk food in my life and to be honest with you, I have gotten so sick of it!  I really do find that real food tastes so much better! 

It may not be that way right away, but you'll find that if you can change your eating habits for at least 6 months to a year, you will find that your taste changes and what tastes good to you now will taste very unpleasant later on.  I now find that sweets are too sweet and fried food tastes so greasy.  I would never dream of eating some of the things that I enjoyed eating before!  They just don't appeal to me anymore.

Now there are many, many different natural high-nutrient foods that fall into the category of super foods.  This list is by no means complete and I will be adding to it as time goes on.  I have dedicated a webpage for each of these foods, as well a recipe or two to get you started. 

Super Foods:

Super Foods Recipes: