« SuperFruits And Marketing Hype »

Another guest post from Sherri Hubbell plus a delightful cartoon graphic below by grea at Sangrea.net

Superfruits are hot items these days. not only in the diet and weight loss industries, but also in the food industry in general. Diet and weight loss marketers claim superfruits help you shed pounds, slow down the aging process, provide protection against cancer, heart attack, stroke, dementia, and even make you smarter.

Marketers don’t always make such overt claims, but they do piggyback on the hype about what a superfruit might promise. That hype surrounding superfruits is faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and, well, you get the idea.

We’re already conditioned by media and advertising to respond to the word “superfruit” with the thought that this fruit must be unusually good for us.  Along with that thought comes the action to venture to the store and buy a superfruit. Just exactly what does the word “superfruit” mean? What are we really buying, and buying into?

Today’s Superfruit Stars

The superfruits we’re hearing the most about lately are acai berries, pomegranates, cranberries, blueberries, tart cherries, goji berries, grapes, sea-buckthorn berries, and mangos. Depending on where you live, some of these are familiar.

In the US, all but acai, goji, and sea-buckthorn  are commonly found fresh, dried, or in juiced form in most supermarkets and health food stores. In Japan, goji berries have been a food staple for centuries. In the Amazon River basin, acai is and has been a food as common as the potato is in Ireland. These fruits have been around for a long time in different corners of the world, but until the first few years of the 21st century, they’d never been labeled “super”.

How the Term Superfruit Evolved

The “super” label that’s now applied to certain fruits didn’t come from scientific studies. It came from marketing strategies based on those studies; particularly strategies designed to create western markets for unfamiliar fruits such as the acai berry.

As early as the 1940s scientists began to identify chemical compounds present in certain foods in addition to the nutrients (minerals, carbohydrates, fats, and proteins) we already understood. Among these compounds are antioxidants and phytochemicals, which play significant roles in helping our bodies metabolize nutrients.

Marketers eventually embraced this information, and by 2005 began to advertise unfamiliar antioxidant-rich fruits as superfruits. In short order, fruits from foreign lands, such as pomegranates and acai berries practically became household words. Considering the 1980s and 90s trends toward green living and healthy life styles, the time was ripe for labeling fruit “super” and branding it as ultra-healthy.

The “super” strategy worked so well that marketers subsequently used it to promote the sale of familiar fruits as well, fruits that were glutting the North American market — cranberries for example. Producers added sugar, re-formulated the cranberry as a dried fruit, and called it a craisin. The cranberry became born again as a superfruit, as did the prune when it became a dried plum.

Then What are Apples and Oranges?

As for apples and oranges, what are they? Indeed they are superfruits as well, possessing antioxidants and phytochemicals. They just aren’t marketed that way because they are familiar and the demand for them coincides nicely with the supply.

As the old adage says, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” Fruits, whether they are labeled “super” or not, are undoubtedly good for you. But until the lab reports are in proving miraculous claims for any one fruit, enjoy them all, including the golden oldies, as part of a sensible diet.

Superman has his Kryptonite while Superfruit has its questionable claims. Superman is fiction, and in some ways, so is Superfruit. But wouldn’t it be nice?