The dark side of superfoods

Our health whims degrade the environment, human rights & also harm us

We Americans love our superfoods. However you dice it, we crave these “super” fruits, vegetables and seeds.

Zoom in on that photo of brilliant red superfood powder (created from acacia, red reishi mushrooms, acerola cherry and grape skin) on Amazon. Mesmerizing, huh?

We lust after that antioxidant load with every bit of our pandemic-exhausted soul.

We ogle that bundle of dense nutrition, all sanitized, pulverized and cleanly contained. You know, wild-harvested but also tamed in a way that fits cleanly in a package we can buy online while lounging in our sweatpants.

That blend of red superfoods from Amazon? The ingredients are sourced from at least three countries. Behind that lush photo of full-bodied fruits, is a complex and troubled journey.

In short, our American and European love affair with superfoods — which is arguably driven by marketing as much as by nutrition — can disrupt local economies with a “boom and bust cycles,” add to human rights concerns, and degrade our environment.

Right. That’s kind of heavy to consider.

But take a deep breath, let’s sip our hot cacao and mushroom beverage (you know, that healthy drink that’s all the rage) and rely on it’s superior adaptogenic load to fuel us through this uncomfortable news.

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