Maggie McKay (Host): We all know a healthy diet is crucial to our wellbeing on so many levels, but let's take it up a notch and talk about superfoods. What are they, why, and more. Registered dietitian Hope Brinkmann will fill us in.

Welcome to the Better Health Podcast from Tidelands Health. I'm your host, Maggie McKay. Welcome, Hope. It's so great to have you here. I am so interested to learn more about superfoods.

Hope Brinkmann, MS: Thanks for having me today.

Host: Absolutely. So, let's start with what are superfoods?

Hope Brinkmann, MS: Superfoods can take many different forms. But at the end of the day, a superfood is something that we want to quantify with nutritional density, which does not always mean calorie density.

Host: And what are some examples of superfoods? And what is so super about them?

Hope Brinkmann, MS: So when I think about nutrient density, I want to think about a food that has lots of not only vitamins and minerals, maybe some fiber, but also maybe some of those extra fun chemicals that we don't always think about like antioxidants, polyphenols. And so, they can come in a majority of forms, thinking about some of our carbohydrates, thinking maybe about tomatoes or thinking about whole grains or thinking about beans and legumes. It could be things like meats, maybe like salmon or eggs. They could also be beans, nuts, and seeds. And then, maybe some other foods that we wouldn't typically think of, like green tea, mushrooms, things of the sort. 

Host: And how much of these foods should we be incorporating into our diet?

Hope Brinkmann, MS: We probably want to think about something every day, but again, it doesn't have to encompass all food groups at all meals of the day. But thinking about how you can start to include foods that are more nutrient-dense from all different kinds of groups can really start to make a difference in your health.

Host: So, should we try to add maybe one superfood to each meal?

Hope Brinkmann, MS: That might be a good place to start. It could be having an egg with breakfast. It could be cooking with olive oil at lunchtime. And then, being very inclusive of those dark leafy greens at dinnertime.

Host: Does it matter when you eat what?

Hope Brinkmann, MS: No. Your body cannot really tell the difference, so any time is a good time to start including superfoods.

Host: How does a superfood get that label or distinction?

Hope Brinkmann, MS: Yeah. So, as we were talking earlier, it's not just vitamins and minerals, right? It can be lots of different compounds. And so, we know the known benefits of many vitamins and minerals. We know the benefits of including fiber that can be good for moderating your blood sugar, reducing your cholesterol, and your overall heart disease risk. It could be the chance that we reduce cancer. But also some of those very minute little compounds that we don't so often think about have all sorts of jobs that we don't even know yet, but the combination of all of them together again can increase brain health. They can again stave off cancer risk and other lifelong inflammatory conditions that we know of.

Host: Are there any FDA rules, for example, that spell out what can be classified as superfood and what can't? Who decides? Because as far as I know, there's no like label on foods that say superfood.

Hope Brinkmann, MS: That's right, and I would be pretty certain to say that the FDA does not have any specific regulations around superfood. They can be a little bit more regulatory around things like added sugar. So, food that doesn't have a lot of added sugar could be considered a superfood, but otherwise superfoods don't have a good marketing term yet.

Host: Okay. So, we have to do our own research and kind of look up, you know, what are superfoods? What are the best ones?

Hope Brinkmann, MS: Yes, absolutely.

Host: Are there any risks to eating superfoods?

Hope Brinkmann, MS: I can't really think of anything off the top of my head. But I always recommend that variety is the spice of life and variety in terms of nutrition also really tends to benefit our health. We could focus on one particular nutrient, but that doesn't mean that that's the only thing that we need. We keep finding all the different benefits of all of these different compounds. And so, using wide brush strokes and including all sorts of foods with all sorts of benefits really seem to be helpful.

Host: Hope, are there any misconceptions about superfoods?

Hope Brinkmann, MS: I think that's a good question and, you know, kind of tying back to what I just said, is that we might be so fixated on one particular food. There was the concerns about the cholesterol in eggs at one point. There are the questions if the antioxidants in wine really make it that beneficial to have something of that nature every day. And again, I think it's just something that you don't need to just eat one superfood all of the time. It really is that range of benefits that we find to be the most beneficial. So, keep moving around, don't fixate too much, and you'll be doing well.

Host: I like the dark chocolate one.

Hope Brinkmann, MS: I, too.

Host: That's at the top of my superfoods. What's the story on that? Is it a certain percentage of cacao or...?

Hope Brinkmann, MS: Yeah. I think they generally recommend about 70% or higher of cacao and a dark chocolate that has multiple benefits.

Host: Can it have sugar in it?

Hope Brinkmann, MS: A little bit of sugar, sure. But that's, you know, the defining difference between milk chocolate versus dark,? Is that there's more cacao in a dark chocolate, less milk, and less sugar, which again, added sugar isn't always to our benefit. A little bit of both.

Host: Yeah. Speaking of sugar. So, let's say you eat some sugar, you eat some superfoods, does the sugar cancel out the benefits you would have gotten from the superfoods?

Hope Brinkmann, MS: I wouldn't go that far, eating leafy greens doesn't cancel out the fact that you did have a soda or something. You want to have a greater majority of superfoods in your diet than you would sugary products, but that's not to say that sugar is going to ruin all the good effort you've already put in otherwise.

Host: Anything in closing, Hope, that you would like to add that people should know about superfoods that we didn't cover?

Hope Brinkmann, MS: I would say if you're unsure of how to include a superfood, think about how you can eat the rainbow, right, which is not new, but we could probably hit a superfood in each color group. So if you think about red, maybe, again, tomatoes, bell peppers, right? We can think about orange, like citrus, like oranges, the fruit, or again, maybe like an orange bell pepper. We can think about yellow, again, more citrus, more yellow bell peppers. Those are the things coming to mind. Corn, I don't know about that being a superfood, but there is good fiber there. Green, can't mess up with green, right? All of your cruciferous vegetables and those dark green leafy veggies. Blue, blueberries. Berries are loving their superfood tagline, right? And then purple, I guess that would be eggplant that might be some variation of another berry. But then, don't dissuade against some of our browns and beiges and whites, right? Again, still onions, garlic, grains, and things like that are still very beneficial. So, the rainbow plus.

Host: All right. Yeah, I forgot about garlic. That's a big one. Well, Hope, this has been so informative. Thank you for sharing your expertise today.

Hope Brinkmann, MS: Of course. Well, thank you for having me.

Host: Again, that's Hope Brinkmann. And to learn more, you can visit tidelandshealth.org or call 1-866-TIDELANDS. And if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and check out our entire podcast library for topics of interest to you. Thanks for listening to the Better Health Podcast from Tidelands Health.