Are superfoods really nutritional powerhouses?
Monday, August 17, 2009 By Alexa Stevenson Research/Penn State You’ve probably seen the supermarket tabloid articles with titles like “The 12 Foods Everyone Should Eat” or “Four Foods for Peak Performance.” Every week there’s another berry, grain or bafflingly-named compound that is the key to better health, longer life and peace in our time. Do these “superfoods,” as they are called, deserve the hype or is the moniker just a marketing tool to sell us food and supplements we don’t really need? It’s a little of both, said Penny Kris-Etherton, distinguished professor of nutrition in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at Penn State. “Nutritionists don’t have a definition for ‘superfood,’ ” she said. What might well deserve the label “super,” though, is “a food that has a high nutrient density or contains bioactive components with proven health benefits.” In our era of super-sized snack foods with lots of calories and scant nutritional value, Kris-Etherton said nutrient density is vita
