Do superfoods such as blueberries really provide any health benefits?
Or is this just another marketing ploy? Scientific consensus in the diet, health and nutrition fields tends to debunk the term ‘superfood’, and as one might imagine there is no scientific definition or quantitative delineation of what makes one food ‘super’ rather than another. In fact, the term is usually coined by the producers of foods that contain ingredients (or extracts derived from ingredients) linked in some way to health benefits. As there is no definition of the term, these may be both ‘traditional’ nutritional benefits, and proposed functionality beyond this (antioxidant activity for example). While provision of nutrients in the diet is highly important to good health, many foods that are not nominated ‘super’ provide excellent macro- and micro-nutrient levels. A balanced diet will therefore generally provide the levels of all these essential nutrients, without the need to habitually go ‘super’ at the dining table. Blueberries contain high levels of dietary fibre, for exampl
