Saturday, October 22, 2011

What is a Superfood?

A superfood is a whole food that is very rich in nutrients and health promoting properties. In order to be considered a superfood, it should have a wide variety of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, phytonutrients, co factors and so on... There are a lot of so called superfoods out there, but which ones are truly super? Let's take a look.

Here's some of todays most popular superfoods: spirulina, chlorella, maca, noni, mangosteen, goji berry, acai, camu camu, wheat grass, barley grass and acerola cherry just to name a few. All of these superfoods are very rich in nutrients and do have wonderful health promoting properties. But, which ones truly are the best?

From a purely nutritional stand, spirulina and chlorella are the best over all superfoods. Spirulina has more concentrated vegetable nutrition than any other whole food known. Chlorella is second in nutrients only to spirulina. Both have the widest and most complete assortment of nutrients and health promoting properties of any food known to man. The others superfoods are also healthy, but in more specific areas.

Goji, acai and mangosteen are excellent for antioxidant boosting. Antioxidants are excellent for fighting aging, because they netralize free radicals which are partly responsible for speeding up the aging process by disrupting DNA. So, pick one of these superfoods to boost your antioxidant levels. You can also boost your antioxidants levels by eating more fruit, particularly berries.

Acerola cherry, noni and camu camu are very rich in Vitamin C and bioflavonoids which are known to boost the immune system. By boosting the immune system, your body produces white blood cells to help fight off infections, viruses and disease. These fruits contain some of the richest whole food sources of vitamin c on earth. It is much better to get vitamin c from these fruits than ascorbic acid which is not a complete food and can be toxic in large amounts.

By far the weakest superfoods that are touted by companies are wheat grass and barley grass. They do not have anywhere near the nutritional makeup of spirulina or chlorella, nor do they have any of the specific properties of the other superfoods mentioned above. The grasses certainly are healthy, but I don't consider them particularly super. Despite the many claims that are made for these grasses, the nutritional profile for them is not very impressive. You would be far better off eating a dark leafy green like kale which is incredibly high in many more nutrients. In that light, I do recommend eating a wide variety of fruits and vegetables instead of relying solely on supplements and superfoods for your health.

But, supplementation can also help. If you are looking for a superfood supplement, I have done a comparison of almost all them out there. After doing a great deal of research, the best superfood supplement I've found is called VITAFORCE. It not only contains many of the best superfoods, but is the only one I have come across that actually gives you all the vitamins and minerals you need for the day. I have tried most of the others and they make a lot of claims, but their nutritional labels are not complete. Vitaforce is complete and I can recommend it whole heartedly. Best of health.

Scott Malin is rapidly becoming a widely respected writer on the subject of nutrition and detoxification. You can find excellent advice about how to successfully detox in a safe and healthy way at: http://www.organichealthandbeauty.com/New-Detox-Diet_ep_227-1.html

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Scott_Malin

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