Talk about health

Regular viewers will have realised that I haven't posted anything for over a month. This was because I caught a chill that has taken a long time to subside, coupled with the festive season celebrations and family get togethers. But I hope normal service will be resumed starting with this, my view of another New Year's beginning.

Still soldiering on with the current batch of resolutions? I didn’t make any this year since I don’t remember ever managing to keep one of them however solemnly made for more than a few days. And this applies to several decades of them.

Well, everything I’ve seen and heard since 2008 began is about either stopping smoking, going on holiday or changing my diet.

The holiday stuff and nicotine replacement is nothing new. Hope for the end of a cold winter or the chance to quit the habit and improve your health. It’s good for the mind and the body.

“What about diet, then?” I hear you ask.

I’m not a fan of the fashion or fad diet. I’m more of an eat-less-and-exercise-more person. Cut out the processed, the excessively sweet and the over salty, … and the deep-fried, is what I say, and try but don’t always manage to do!

At this time of year, however, I get a little exercised about the rash of detox advice and the ubiquitous-ness of superfood facts.

The detox should be a simple affair. Stop drinking vast amounts of alcohol in all its forms. Cut out the snack sausage roll, miniature quiche, finger size vol-au-vent and handy chicken bite. Get off your but and go for a walk. Return to a reasonable food and beverage intake and what you get is a detox. Your liver and kidneys should do the rest.

As for the latter, I admit to being in two minds. Labelling fresh foods as ‘super’ or otherwise has become habit that is not strictly justified. The bottom line is that fresh, seasonal foods grown close to the point of consumption are better than those flown round the world, frozen and defrosted. However, many of these exotic fruits and nuts are good for you. But, let’s get back to my theme.

How many superfoods are there? I recall when there were supposed to be only half a dozen or so. Now, there’s a book that discusses fifty or more. Are they all super? The list includes bananas, avocados, almonds, apples, parsnips, broccoli and so on. When you analyse how they come to be given the ‘super’ status, you realise they have the same things in common.

At a general level, they all have fibre, vitamins and minerals, antioxidants, proteins and carbohydrates, and sometimes, strangely named compounds involved in maintaining good health and fighting illness. What they do is to nourish you, top up the batteries, maintain a healthy body, repair tissue damage and all the things food is intended to do.

The superfood has lost a lot of its meaning. Is there any point in trying to recall today’s example or even to carry around the list of fifty so your shopping basket can now keep up with the Joneses? Taken as a whole, none is particularly more super than another. But I suppose it’s a way of trying to get your attention.

The moral is to forget all about so-called superfoods as if they are some recent groundbreaking scientific discovery. Just consider fresh fruits and vegetables, spices and herbs for what they are.

Each has something to offer for your continuing good health. Avocados have mono-unsaturated fat, vitamin E, potassium, folate and fibre. Tomatoes have a whole list of immune boosters, vitamin C and B, and lycopene. Broccoli has protein and cancer-fighting compounds. Apples have cholesterol-lowering chemicals, fibre and more. Cinnamon has a moderating effect on insulin production to lower the risk of developing type-2 diabetes. Almonds as packed with magnesium to lower cholesterol and help your heart. Need I go on?

There’s nothing especially super about any one of them. Until you compare their nutritional benefits with eating the flavoured cardboard that constitutes much of the fast food consumed today … and consider nutritional deficiencies are the root of much of modern diseases.

When you adjust your diet to include a range of fresh fruit and vegetables, you will get the whole thing - the range of vitamins and minerals your body needs: fibre, antioxidants, chemicals with their strange sounding names to help you fight infections, disease and cancer. Clearly, judicious supplementation helps to fill in any gaps and top up minor shortages.

In fact, maximising the amount of such foods while cutting down the processed, the salty, the sweet and the fried could be the best resolution of this and future years. Perhaps we should rename all fresh fruit, vegetables, spices and nuts as superfoods. Or simply go back to calling them food. Then we could downgrade fast foods, processed food and the like to non-foods? Just a thought!

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