Yes, that’s right. I’ve done the research. I did the hard work. I did the digging. If I had a chemistry lab, I might’ve even done the testing myself. If you’ve ever wanted to know which foods help prevent cancer, help slow down aging, stop smoking, make you taller and even make you more attractive, this post is just for you.
I’m sure you see these “articles” all over the Internet, or on the cover of every grocery store magazine. “This food will help you curb belly fat!” or even “This drink will help you stop wrinkles!” or I know you’ve seen “This food will help save mankind from the ultimate perils of fatness!!!!1111!11!1!1” Well, forget them. This, right here, is the definitive list.
Get ready for it.
Are you ready?
Here goes.
A market FULL of superfoods!
If you want to cure, fix, prevent or eliminate most problems that affect the human body… eat the food that comes out of the ground.
Short list, right? It really is that simple.
It’s not meant to be insulting, but it should definitely sound like a gigantic “duh” moment. Problems with your skin? Bet swapping out a chemical-laden food for real food will help with that. Problems with your hair? Sure, you can take a vitamin for that… but the natural origin of that vitamin? A real food. Trouble with your digestive system? Guess what may be able to help? A real food.
When you go grocery shopping and you pick up foods with big bright signs that say “now with fiber!” or something ludicrous like “fortified with Vitamin X,” guess what? Those are chemical versions of those vitamins. Those vitamins aren’t “extracted” from natural resources! It couldn’t possibly have the same benefit, and keep it real – because of the way those vitamins are delivered, they may not even be usable in your system (for example – some vitamins only dissolve in fat.. but they’re offered in fat-free foods as a “benefit!” You wind up passing the “vitamin” right out of your system.)
Mmmm... "good for your heart."
We’re always looking for shortcuts.. we want to buy things in boxes that tell us “Ooooooh, I can get a day’s worth of Vitamin C!111” or “Oh, all my fiber in one bowl? Really? Must buy!” We read articles in magazines telling us how drinking ammonia, a kool-aid/bleach mixture, or apple cider vinegar can help us lose weight… when it’s really only protecting us from what we would’ve eaten otherwise. We’re gung-ho to buy something telling us it’s “good for our heart,” even if that “something” is a bag of Fritos.
We’ve created a culture that is so obsessed with “what we put in our bodies,” that we’ve overlooked “what we are putting in our bodies.” So blinded by “fat is bad… ooooh, this is low fat!” that we don’t remember to turn it over and see all the chemicals required to make that “low-fat” item. It never dawns on us to remember that if we’re seeking to lower our fat intake, we should just… eat less of the fatty item. It also never dawns on us to think about how we’re sacrificing the taste of the fatty item – “low fat” items never taste as good as their regular counterparts. We’re just so focused on “ooh, low fat!” and feel so guilty about eating the food in the first place, that we suffer through the disgusting – usually salty and cardboard tasting – food. Yuck.
We’d buy a cereal colored with a food coloring known to cause mental deficiencies because it says “made with whole grain… good for your heart!” on the side. We agonize over vitamins and minerals that we don’t understand… we just know that we need them. We know that we need them because someone told us we do. Before processed foods, we didn’t need to know we need these vitamins and minerals… because before processed foods, we were eating real food! We were getting them in our diets anyway.
The problem with this “superfood” kind of culture is the fact that it creates a panic surrounding certain elements of food, but allows you to ignore the food itself. Why? Because elements of food can be recreated, packaged and sold. Food, in and of itself, can only come one way. It’s beneficial to the food industry for you to focus on parts of food… because they can infuse their products with parts of food. And guess what – if they infuse their products with the right combinations of “parts of food,” they can even get pretty stamps and stickers from organizations we “trust” telling us how good their product is for us! Meanwhile, no stamps or stickers for the valuable stuff – the produce section. Hell, the produce section doesn’t even get any labels or wrapping.
You probably clicked this link because you thought you were going to get the answer to all your nutritional needs. Well, in reality, you did. Everything you need to live, thrive and do both happily is in real food. Everything. Ev-ery-thing. It doesn’t have an advocate paying a writer to talk about it being a “superfood.” It doesn’t have a bright sticker telling you how good it is for your health. It’s just there… in all its colorful glory… chillin’ in the produce section. Give it a shot. It won’t hurt.. I promise!