A year and a half ago I moved to Brisbane city in Queensland Australia.
I spent a lot of time driving to and from the clinic I work at on the Sunshine Coast (about a 1.5hr drive each way). When we first made the move there was a big fruit shop enroute. I loved stopping at this fruit shop on my way home. I always make it just in the nick of time before it closed, and everything was being packed up around me. (Shout out to the people that worked there and saw me coming right before close about once a week and were still so friendly).
It wasn’t that long until that the fruit shop closed its doors. I was sad to see it go. It had such a great variety of fruits, vegetables and loads of other delicious things like yoghurt, cheeses, pastas, corn chips etc and often some real bargains. It was such a convenient stop for me.
For weeks after the shop closed, I’d drive past and wonder what was going to take its place (I know, I know what an exciting life I lead) and just a few days ago, I found out.
Drum roll…
…
A supplement store.
A supplement store took its place.
I couldn’t help but think about the irony of this as I drove by reading the new shiny sings out front shouting enticing and catchy phrases like “superfood supplements”.
It reminded me of something a dietitian friend shared on social media recently. Something along the lines of “the most boring nutrition information is most likely the correct nutrition information”.
The Irony
A store packed full of fresh real “superfoods” was being replaced by isolated, refined, packaged and expertly marketed “superfoods”.
I think as people/companies/corporations get better at understanding why people buy and therefore get better at selling to us combined with there being a very real need to make more money than ever before in our current societal set up and therefore a huge need to sell we’re losing touch with the realities of how we support health and one of the realities is the “mundaneness” of health.
We are sold the story we must strive for this and strive for that and take this product and this supplement. All the while ignoring the fact that these supplements are just versions of, isolates of or mimics of what is found in our foods in the first place…
As a dietitian with a four-year education in human nutrition plus another sever years working as a dietitian in a variety of venues, plus another fifteen years of living with an eating disorder prior to that (in which a massive component within that eating disorder was obsessively learning about nutrition) I can tell you we do not know all there is to know about nutrition.
But what we do know is that our body has a requirement for a substantial number of nutrients and that by eating a variety of foods you are more likely to meet your nutritional needs.
We also do know that by eating food versus supplements and vitamin/mineral pills you are getting benefits far beyond what those one or few isolated components within the supplement offer. There are many components within foods which we simply do not have the research on, or no one has taken the time to market them which are likely fantastic for us.
Therefore, I imagine for every component within a food we have isolated and experimented upon to discover that it has qualities which are beneficial to human beings there are numerous more components within that food that are also beneficial. It is very likely many of them work best in conjunction and within a whole food versus in isolation. We already know this with examples such as vinegar added to a carbohydrate rich meal helps us digest and absorb those carbohydrates more slowly, vitamin C helps us absorb non-haem iron better and eating soluble fibre helps bind and reduce the cholesterol we absorb in a meal. This is just naming off the top of my head a few examples of nutrient interactions within our bodies. I would happily put money on the bet that are many more we know of and many more we don’t yet fully understand or know of at all.
Remember as you go forth in a world full of distractions from what really matters to you and people that benefit of your purchasing their product the only difference between a “superfood” and a “food” is marketing…
A big chunk of what’s truly healthy is mundane.
Take Home Suggestions
My advice as a level headed dietitian but also as someone who for lack of a more tactful way of saying this wasted fifteen years of my life caught up in what I put into my body is this – get your foundations down (which broadly speaking is three meals plus some snacks per day, eating from all of the five food groups, sleeping well, getting some time outside, spending time with people where you feel you belong and are accepted. Within each of these are individual nuances). Then once you have solid foundations and only then if you so wish go to town with whatever else you want to add on top of this. Because until you get those foundations down the additional protein powder or green powder isn’t doing much in comparison to the boring stuff.
The truth is if you have the foundations down the additional protein powder or green powder more than likely becomes obsolete.
But as always, the caveat is it’s likely you’re reading this and we’ve never met and I have no clue about you or your history or your life or your goals for the rest of your life therefore, always devise a plan to reach your goals with a professional. A professional is not the person on Instagram with the most followers (we health professionals are for the most part terrible at gaining Instagram followers because our truthful content in all truthfulness is just too mundane and way too unsexy).
Health is not a quick fix. It is a lifelong journey and what you ate for the past 30 years matters more than what you ate for the past day, week, month or even year.
If you want to experience true health and happiness one of the best things you can do for yourself is work with a nutrition expert (aka a dietitian) and yeah be prepared that it’s probably going to be a lot less sexy and emotionally eliciting information than you’d get of the YouTube gym bro but it’s far more likely to give you the outcomes you want long term.
In the words of one of my long-term mentors “Well intentioned action on bad data is the surest way to fail”.
Free up your mind from the noise of the “health” world, get the foundations down and continue to improve towards your personal goals and you will be well ahead of anyone still caught up in pursuing the next “superfood supplement”.
With all my heart I hope you found this information valuable.
Become Great. Live Great.
Bonnie.
