The first people who started bringing up the phenomenon of superfoods were raw foodists and vegans – apparently people, who worried about their health, objected almost all the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO), and began to search for the ‘magic pill’ that would replace products of animal origin.
It was an expert in dietetics and an advocate of the raw food movement, David Wolfe, who presented products such as cocoa beans, seaweed spirulina, goji berries and acai to the world.
People around the world happily received the news that some ‘super’ food products that offer you to “feel better, look younger, live longer” have been discovered. Moreover, along with the trend for all natural, local and organic, the word ‘superfood’ is started being used on the packaging of various products, which increased sales and attracted consumers’ attention.
The European Union even introduced a special law, which regulates the use of the term on the packaging: from July 2007, all the manufacturers who wanted to place the word ‘superfood’ on their packaging have been obliged to provide appropriate medical and scientific papers.
This phenomenon would have remained among small groups of people if such stars as Madonna, Sting and Gwyneth Paltrow have not started to sing the praises of superfood in interviews with glossy (and not very glossy) magazines.
And knowing how diet, fitness and health trends work, the appearance of the word ‘superfoods’ in interviews with celebrities gave the superfood phenomenon a huge boost. People started googling about superfoods, discovering their health benefits and claiming that they found a magic pill that cures pretty much everything. But what is superfood and can it really cure everything?