
How super are those pricey 'superfoods'? - found_reading
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/marketplace-superfoods-1.4362487
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will_brown
They seem to be making strangely isolated measurements that have little to do
with the claimed benefits of the alleged superfoods.

For starters I think most people agree there is no need to replace
electrolytes during endurance activities that do not exceed 1 hour, oddly the
length of time in this study. I’m not sure anyone claims coconut water
hydrates better than water, but certainly it’s going to be more beneficial for
replacing lost electrolytes. Personally, I’d like to see a study regarding
coconut milk vs water and the hydration effects on the intestines themselves,
my hypothesis would be intestines hydrated with coconut milk more readily
absorb vitamins and nutrients from other foods than intestines hydrated with
just water, either way it would be an interesting experiment.

As to chia seeds being compared to salmon, that alone should probably confirm
their status as a food rich in omega 3 fatty acids, as salmon is one of the
best sources of omega 3 fatty acids. But what’s the use case? As a runner I am
more inclined to drink water or coconut milk with a teaspoon of soaked chia
seeds rather than run with a belly full of salmon, but for dinner I’d rather
have a plate of salmon than a teaspoon of chia seed. And omega 3s are not the
sole benefit of chia seeds, As natures form of time release capsules they will
provide some degree of continued hydration during long runs from the liquid
they were soaked in that salmon will not. It seems they could have measured
the hydrating effects of the chia seed vs the salmon, but instead they only
seem to focus on the percent of omega 3 obsorption of chia vs salmon, but as I
said these were oddly isolated measurements.

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gxs
Once you start getting into this type of thinking it's really easy to go down
a rabbit hole.

I'd love to see the same research, but if you start digging into this subject
you will be disappointed in the answers you get.

After researching this stuff as a hobby for some time, I've come to the
conclusion that this stuff is not well understood and there is still a lot
left to explore.

As technical people, we sometimes look for something along the lines of hey -
this is the chemical composition of something, balance some equations and
figure out the affect it has on our body chemistry. This is just an exmaple,
of course it's simplified and not quite accurate.

Unfortunately it's not that simple and doing this kind of research requires a
ton of data and test subjects that just aren't practical in day to day
research.

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DarkTree
Agreed. When I discovered the world of healthy living, I started reading and
applying a lot of nutrition advice to my life. It was natural that I would
come across research defending both sides of the coin for certain foods (eggs,
for example), but I felt I generally became healthier and more aware of what I
put into my body. However, over time I felt I read enough to come to the
conclusion that we don't really know much at all and so I don't really read
about nutrition research anymore. I tend to stick to simple principles now
like eat more vegetables and as little sugar as possible. Beyond that, it
seems too nebulous.

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gxs
Exactly, my path was similar and I follow similar principles- lean meats, lots
of vegetables, some fat, little to no sugar or processed carbs.

Seems like a lot of peopl end up settling into something like this.

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jerf
"Sales of coconut water have skyrocketed in the past two years, and
anecdotally, several fitness buffs interviewed by _Marketplace_ said they
believe it hydrates better than tap water."

That's... that's a tall bar. "Provides more electrolytes" than water, sure.
"More energizing than water", sure. But _hydrates better_ than water? Though a
charitable reading of the fitness buff's claim could be that it's "better for
someone working out than water", which, again, is at least possible as there
are more dimensions than just "hydration" there.

~~~
Darmani
Both energy drinks and milk absorb better than water. Doesn't seem odd that
coconut water is in the and category.

~~~
logfromblammo
Doesn't matter. Even if I only absorbed 90% of the water I drank, I could just
drink 1.111 L of water to get 1 L of "hydration", and it would still be
cheaper than drinking 1 L of Brawndo, the Thirst Annihilator.

On a money cost basis, in any place on Earth that has municipal drinking water
on tap, drinking that water is the cheapest way to hydrate your body. Whether
or not "best" includes the money cost is a matter of opinion, but most people
at least include it as a factor.

The same goes for a lot of "superfoods". On a cost basis, whatever you get
from 100g of the "superfood" can probably be obtained by eating 200g of
something else, sold at a much lower price. Or it's only of interest to
vegans, because the "something else" is an animal product. People on western
diets just aren't limited by nutrition content. If you eat your normal calorie
quota--even a reduced quota from a weight-loss diet--you can always get
adequate nutrition from just the normal, healthy, non-"super" foods. There's
nothing stopping you from eating a bucketful of broccoli with a bit of salmon,
and skipping the wheatgrass-kale-chia-pomegranate super-smoothies forever.

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cwkoss
I think there are a lot more interesting superfoods.

Stinging nettles are amazing: 30% protein by dry weight, incredibly dense with
vitamins and minerals, stingers contain human-compatible neurotransmitters.
Also, the baby plants are most nutritious and can't sting you yet!

~~~
KGIII
What is the benefit of containing neurotransmitters? I hit up Wikipedia and
see they carry signals. I'm not seeing how that is a benefit, however. They
appear to carry any signal, not some special signals. Unless one has too few
(I'm not sure what might even cause that) then I'm not seeing why that's
beneficial.

~~~
cwkoss
I don't think they can cross the blood brain barrier, but I think I've read
that some can get partially metabolized into a precursor, travel across the
BBB, and then re-assembled within the brain.

Probably not particularly necessary for healthy individuals, but could reduce
the amount of work needed to synthesize your own transmitters (few steps
rather than 'from scratch'). Perhaps some individuals with neurotransmitter
deficits could see benefit.

As I'm sure you can tell though, I'm not a trained neuroscientist.

~~~
KGIII
Hmm... If I'm understanding correctly, they might possible be bound to opiate
molecules and increase efficacy in hitting the receptors?

That makes some sense. By itself, I can't think of how it would benefit a
healthy person. I'm not even sure what kinds of unhealthy people that might
help.

So, to me it looked like, 'Hey, here are some fancy words! Don't look too
deep, because they are mostly meaningless.' No offense intended, that's just
what it looked like to a curious layman.

I have a commercial wild blueberry operation so I hear some really, really
strange claims. Things like this peg my skepticism meter. No, my blueberries
won't turn you into Superman or Einstein. They don't cure cancer, prevent HIV,
or give you psychic powers.

~~~
cwkoss
I don't think nettles have opiate-like molecules. (Would probably be counter
productive - less pain, poorer defense mechanism)

Nettles have serotonin, histamine, and acetylcholine. Serotonin could benefit
certain mood disorders, and acetylcholine supplementation can reduce certain
kinds of headaches.

As with all natural foods/medicines, I think you'd typically see only minor
benefits over long-term supplementation. Much less powerful than modern
medicine, but perhaps fewer side effects when taken properly.

You're right to be skeptical though, lots of snake-oil salesmen in the natural
food space making dubious claims. Blueberries are probably much healthier for
you than eating Cheetos, but probably not that different from other berries. I
appreciate scientists studying which species have the most nutrition, but
variance in freshness and growing conditions are probably the biggest factors
in nutritional density. ex. fresh raspberry are probably better than old
poorly grown blueberries.

~~~
KGIII
I meant they could be chemically bound with opiate molecules in a separate
process. Not that they contained them by default and in nature. Sorry for the
confusion.

Blueberries contain antioxidants! LOL

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tmnvix
If potatoes were not commonplace, they would be declared a 'superfood'.

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maxxxxx
Whenever someone talks about "superfoods" I immediately think they are full of
shit. It's just an attempt to make something simple (normal food) into
something expensive to make money from. Same happened to exercise. The basics
of exercise haven't changed in a long time but you still have people
repackaging it to make money.

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whathaschanged
Coconut water is repackaged waste byproduct that someone figured out how to
make money off of. It's classic marketing.

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yumaikas
Coconut water, when it's actually fresh (I don't know about after
packing/processing), is actually pretty good for drinking, especially since it
has various nutrients you don't get out of regular water. Fresh, it _isn 't_
something I'd call a "waste byproduct".

~~~
whathaschanged
The entire superfood craze is about packaging, processing and marketing. Fresh
isn't an ingredient, it's subjective.

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yumaikas
What I'm trying to get at is that coconut water itself isn't some "waste
product". Granted, it be might have been an unused material in some coconut
processing pipelines (though I'd be skeptical of that, since anyone that
spends time with coconuts knows there's some good stuff in there).

Fresh, for me, refers to having coconut water where the coconut was cut off
the tree minutes prior to being opened up. I don't know enough about how Zico
and the like are process to speak with any intelligence as to how it might
affect the end-product.

EDIT: that being said, I wouldn't pay $6/liter for coconut water. That's
overpriced by a long shot, IMO.

