How super are those pricey ‘superfoods’? Marketplace puts 3 of them to a test
Coconut water, quinoa and chia have 3 things in common: they’re popular, they’re costly and they’re mostly marketed as ultra-healthy “superfoods.”
Marketplace recently reviewed a labels of scarcely 100 supposed superfood products as partial of an review to see whether a trend is indeed about improved health or simply offered hype.
Friday night’s episode (8 p.m. CBC, 8:30 p.m. in Newfoundland) reveals how any product can be labelled as a superfood in Canada though indeed carrying to infer it has higher health advantages — an burden opening that experts advise could lead consumers to overpay for dishes that under-deliver.
Marketplace also motionless to array 3 of a many renouned superfood staples head-to-head opposite 3 cheaper Canadian alternatives to see that ones yield a best nutritive crash for your buck.
Here are a formula of a food faceoff.
COCONUT WATER VS. TAP WATER
Sales of coconut H2O have skyrocketed in a past dual years, and anecdotally, several aptness buffs interviewed by Marketplace pronounced they trust it hydrates improved than daub water.
So Marketplace decided to control an examination comparing a renouned splash to Ontario daub H2O to establish that one provides improved hydration during exercise.
Producers approached Stephen Cheung, a Canada Research Chair in environmental ergonomics during Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont., to run a exam in his lab where he customarily conducts impassioned competition experiments, mostly in opposite climates to establish optimal jaunty performance.
Host Charlsie Agro drank 500 millilitres of coconut H2O that has 45 calories, 11 grams of carbohydrates and 11 grams of sugarine per cup. Its tag says it’s full of healthy electrolytes and has some-more potassium than a banana.
Agro afterwards ran 11 km/h for 60 mins on a treadmill with a slight slip in a temperature-controlled environment of 35 C and 40 per cent humidity.
Cheung took measurements throughout, including mixed urine samples, weigh-ins, core heat and heart rate, and collected anecdotal justification on how Agro was feeling.
Agro drinks 500 millilitres of daub H2O before using on a treadmill. (CBC )
The same examination was steady reduction than 24 hours after with daub water.
Cheung resolved a dual liquids have roughly a same ability to keep Agro hydrated during a workout.
“I would sum all adult by observant coconut H2O can hydrate you, though it doesn’t indispensably do a improved pursuit than water,” he said.
Some new tiny studies came to identical conclusions.
The International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, for example, published a news that pronounced during practice and totalled earthy performance, coconut H2O “does not urge markers of hydration.”
Top-selling brands
Marketplace approached dual of a many renouned brands of coconut H2O for their reaction.
Pepsico, O.N.E. coconut water’s primogenitor company, declined an interview.
In an emailed statement, Arthur Gallego, Vita Coco’s tellurian executive of corporate communications, pronounced it’s a product’s potassium, an electrolyte, that helps when operative out. Its labels and promotion underscore that point.
Cheung pronounced many people don’t need to supplement electrolytes when they work out unless they are sportive greatly for a prolonged time and miss a diet of fruits and vegetables, that supply healthy potassium.
He also said with a calories, sugarine and carbohydrates in coconut water, “you’re gaining additional calories that we competence not unequivocally need” and that competence be counterproductive.
Not to mention, coconut H2O typically sells for $3 to $6.50 per litre.
The bottom line, Cheung said, is cruise good-old Canadian daub H2O to stay hydrated when sportive — it’s cheaper, calorie-free and as effective as coconut water.
QUINOA VS. POTATO
In 1993, NASA scientists wrote a systematic paper compelling quinoa as a clever claimant for wanderer food since of a nutritive properties.
Fast-forward 20 years and a United Nations announced 2013 a International Year of Quinoa, in partial since it has all essential amino acids and a intensity to offer good nutrition, generally in building countries.
Quinoa is mostly marketed as a pellet that’s high in protein and low in carbs, and a sales have scarcely doubled in a past dual years in 62 of a world’s vital economies, according to marketplace investigate organisation Mintel.
- ​Manitoba farmers money in as quinoa disturb heats up
- Producers work to accommodate abroad direct for ‘superfood‘ seeds
But is it a nutrition-packed powerhouse that so many people seem to consider it is?
Dietitian Jen Sygo, who works with Canada’s Olympic lane athletes as good as a Toronto Maple Leafs and Raptors, pronounced quinoa isn’t “a vital protein source like a beef or eggs, or even dishes like beans and lentils and chickpeas.”
A crater of quinoa has 8 grams of protein compared to a standard duck breast with 30 grams or more.
Quinoa is also utterly high in calories, she said, with about 220 per crater of baked quinoa, so it’s also not a weight-loss choice to other starches.
Dietitian Jen Sygo says a potato is an glorious — and reduction costly — choice to quinoa. (CBC)
Sygo pronounced a nutritive value of quinoa is serve discontinued when it’s processed in chips, crackers and other products.
“We fundamentally have taken a quinoa pellet heart and rarely processed it into this until you’ve obliterated a lot of a nourishment and incited it into something that substantially creates your blood sugarine go up, competence be high in salt and sugar,” she said.
So what does Sygo suggest as an ignored and affordable choice to quinoa?
“The beautiful, eminent Canadian potato.”
She pronounced it’s on standard with quinoa in terms of calories, and there’s a combined advantage of a potassium and vitamin C — a decent trade-off for what’s sacrificed in terms of protein.
“They’re so underappreciated,” she said, and most cheaper during $4 for a 4.5-kilogram bag of potatoes compared to that cost for a 400-gram package of quinoa.
CHIA VS. SALMON OR FLAX
Chia seeds have turn a smart tack of smoothies and salads, with sales spiking by some-more than 200 per cent in usually a past dual years.
One of chia’s pivotal offered points is a fact it’s high in omega-3 greasy acids, that are believed to revoke a risk of heart illness and assistance mind function.
But Sygo pronounced there’s an critical catch. For a physique to use chia, it has to modify a seeds to acids and a normal physique usually translates “between about 0 and 10 per cent of that into a serviceable form of omega-3.”
And that’s usually if a seeds are all digested, that is also unlikely.
“It’s an untimely approach to get your omega-3s,” Sygo said. “You’d have to eat a lot of it.” And that could spike your twine intake — that could means other issues, she pronounced with a laugh.
Instead, she suggests salmon, that has a some-more simply eatable and pristine form of omega-3 greasy acids.
Chia seeds have about 17 grams of omega-3s per 100-gram serving, and that sounds flattering good when we review it to a square of Atlantic salmon, that has 2.2 grams.
But requesting a acclimatisation Sygo described takes those 17 grams down to reduction than dual grams — reduction than what’s found in a salmon.
For vegetarians or others who cite seeds, Sygo suggests switching to a Canadian choice to a alien chia: flax seeds.
Besides a nutritive similarities, flax is about a third of a price. A 400-gram bag of chia can be $15 or more compared to about $5 for a same-size bag of flax.
- MARKETPLACEÂ wants to know what we think. Share your thoughts on Twitter, Facebook or email us: marketplace@cbc.ca
Article source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/marketplace-superfoods-1.4362487?cmp=rss