Superfoods Explained

The term "superfoods" is used a lot these days, and it can seem like every day there is some new fruit or vegetable being touted as a miracle cure for cancer or weight-loss aid. Are these foods really super? What does it all mean?

Many foods are termed superfoods because they have higher concentrations of certain vitamins or minerals than other similar foods, or because studies have shown that people who eat them show health benefits, when compared to people that don't eat them.

(The term superfoods has certainly been adopted by marketing people who want to sell us more of the products they are selling, so we should be skeptical of products bearing the superfoods label that are twice the price of similar foods.)

Superfoods for Weight Loss

Many of the foods that are touted as weight-loss superfoods are pretty obvious choices, such as oatmeal and lentils, which fill you up for longer because they take longer to digest. These are great foods to incorporate into your healthy diet (or add more of if you are already eating them). Oatmeal is also a great choice because it has such a positive affect on clogged arteries and can help lower cholesterol.

Several protein sources have been touted as superfoods in recent years: Good old eggs are a super source of protein that keeps you full – one study showed that women who ate eggs for breakfast, as part of a low-calorie diet, lost more weight than those that didn’t. Women that ate lean steak as part of their diet were also found to lose more weight than those who didn’t eat red meat. Salmon is a great source of essential fatty acids, which have been shown to increase the body’s ability to build muscle and burn belly fat.

While these protein sources aren’t necessarily the only ones you should eat, it is certainly true that most of us do not get enough protein in our diets, so it is definitely worth trying to eat more.

Other weight-loss superfoods are ones that raise your metabolic rate, such as green tea and chillies. We blogged about this back in January, click here to read more.

Covering Your Bases

In the pursuit of being healthy, don’t forget to include the foods that have great overall benefits – such as fruits and vegetables that are high in anti-oxidents. Eating a varied diet that includes all types of superfoods will help you stay healthy for your whole life, not just as part of your weight-loss journey.