While several “superfoods” trend in the health sites today, we are actually yet to see the benefits of some of them. The trend of superfoods is becoming popular each passing day, but before you include them in your diet, you must know what benefits some of them actually offer and if they benefit at all. It has been found that there are certain superfoods that we can easily do without as they do not offer as many health benefits as they are said to do. In this list, acai berries, goji berries, pineapples, kale, and mare’s milk get featured first as those superfoods are not actually as great as they are claimed to be. They can easily be replaced with cheaper and better alternatives if you wish to.
1. Acai Berries
These days, the fruit of the South American acai palm has been quite a big seller in organic grocery stores. Acai berries are rich sources of vitamin C, but majority of the fruits provide the same amount of vitamin C that acai berries do; for example, kiwis, lemons, and oranges. Vitamin C can be found in high amounts in even clementines, grapefruits, golden kiwis, blackcurrants and red berries among other fruits. In fact, vegetables such as turnips, cabbages, peppers, fennel, and spinach too contain vitamin C. So, why would you spend a fortune and buy acai berries to fill you up with vitamin C when you have equally good options in much cheaper rates? Give this a thought and see if you want to strike out acai berries from your list of superfoods.
2. Goji Berries
It has been said that goji berries have seen some over-promotion these days. Goji berries are said to contain high amount of antioxidants, but the same antioxidants are found in abundance in pomegranates too. In fact, the best way to consume antioxidants is by protecting the body from harmful free radicals. It is extremely difficult to find organic goji berries, the ones that have not seen pesticide-treatment, and in many cases, these chemically treated goji berries cause allergies in people as well. So, have pomegranates, drink green tea and a lot of water, and inculcate healthy eating habits instead of buying chemically-treated and over-promoted goji berries.
3. Pineapple
It is not entirely false that pineapples contain bromelain, a compound that promotes weight loss, but the truth is that this compound is found in the stem of the fruit and hardly enough in the flesh. So, if you are eating pineapples too much to shed those extra inches, you aren’t doing much good to your body. The sugar content too in pineapples is as high as a glycemic index of 50, while the same nutrients are loaded in berries and can be provided to you in a glycemic index of 25, half of what pineapples contain.
4. Kale
With the growing popularity of kale, it needed some study to be done on it, and it was found that kale does not deserve as much attention as the media is giving it. The shelves of organic stores and supermarkets are flooded with kale juice, kale soup, and other kale-derived products today. In fact, instead of spending so much on kale, you can get the same dose of nutrients from spinach, green beans, carrots, peppers, tomatoes, and vegetables of the brassicaceae family, notably broccoli, cabbage, and even cauliflower. Kale protects you from cancer as much as these vegetables do; kale does nothing better than them.
5. Mare’s Milk
Mare’s milk has been believed to have magical effects on digestion, intestinal flora, and on your overall health, but mare’s milk is yet to prove these benefits. Mare’s milk is very expensive and it is not even environment-friendly to produce it, then why gauge on them without any scientific studies to prove their effectiveness? If we talk about its nutrient-content, mare’s milk contains plenty of lactose, but very little fat, although it contains a good amount of vitamin C. However, for Vitamin C, we already have all those citric fruits, and cow’s milk for lactose as well. So, there seems to be no point in spending a good fortune on mare’s milk.
