Walk into any health food store and you’ll see it everywhere. Labels screaming “superfood” plaster everything from overpriced berry powders to exotic oils. It’s hard not to wonder if you’re missing out on some miracle ingredient that could transform your health overnight. Here’s the thing, though: the term superfood was technically created for marketing, and there is no regulation around superfoods according to Mayo Clinic dietitians. That means companies can slap the label on pretty much anything they want without proving it does what they claim. Let’s be real, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. So which hyped-up foods are actually just dressed-up disappointments?
Acai Berries: The Overhyped Amazonian Import
Acai bowls are everywhere these days, looking gorgeous on Instagram with their deep purple hue and artfully arranged toppings. These little berries from South America have been marketed as age-defying, weight-loss wonders. Marketers’ claims that acai products promote rapid weight loss are unproven, and early studies show that acai has no effect on weight at all. That’s right, zero effect despite all the buzz.
The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health highlights that no reliable peer-reviewed studies can support claims that acai berries alone promote rapid weight loss. Even worse? In 2013, the Federal Trade Commission ordered certain online marketers of acai products for weight loss to pay $9.4 million in fines and settlements for misleading claims. That should tell you everything you need to know about how truthful the marketing really was.
Sure, acai berries contain antioxidants, but so do regular blueberries and strawberries you can grab at your local grocery store for a fraction of the price. Most claims on the benefits of acai berry for brain health are extrapolations from animal and cell-culture research and have not been validated in humans, with zero clinical trials on acai and cognition. The frozen acai pulp in those trendy bowls? Over half of acai supplements were found to either consist of little to no acai berry or enough water to significantly dilute the chemical constituents of the fruit, with few supplements containing unlisted ingredients.
Goji Berries: Expensive Little Red Liars
These tiny red berries from China have been hyped as immunity boosters and vision protectors for years now. When goji berries were at the height of their popularity in Europe and the United States in the late 2000s, they were produced in China in somewhat dubious conditions, resulting in higher levels of pesticides than those authorized. Not exactly the health miracle you were hoping for.
The British Dietetic Association points out something pretty damning about goji marketing. There is no evidence to support the alleged health claims of goji berries as most of the research studies are small-sized, poor quality, in labs that use purified and increased concentrations of goji berry extract. Translation? The studies don’t reflect what happens when you actually eat the berries in normal amounts. Frozen berries often contain more vitamin C than goji berries gram for gram plus they are generally considerably cheaper.
The truth is that goji berries do contain nutrients, but you’re not getting anything you can’t find in regular berries. New scientific reviews urge careful interpretation of claims and realistic expectations for health benefits, with researchers emphasizing that evidence is not conclusive and warrants balanced, evidence-based consideration. It’s basically a case of paying premium prices for standard nutrition wrapped in exotic marketing.
Activated Charcoal: The Detox That Doesn’t Detox
Black lemonade, charcoal ice cream, detox smoothies with that distinctive dark color. Activated charcoal has infiltrated the wellness scene with claims it can flush toxins from your body and cleanse your system. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t work that way. Some over-the-counter activated charcoal products claim to support general detoxification of the body, however no scientific evidence currently supports these claims.
Activated charcoal cleanses are a pseudoscientific use of a proven medical intervention for poisoning, and such claims violate basic principles of chemistry and physiology with no medical evidence for any health benefits. Medical professionals actually use activated charcoal in emergency rooms for poisoning cases, but that’s completely different from drinking it in your morning juice. Activated charcoal will only bind with whatever particles are in your stomach or intestines at the time you take it by coming into physical contact with your intestinal contents, so if you’re trying to detox from alcohol and food from the night before, it won’t do anything because they have been absorbed into your bloodstream already.
What’s worse is the actual harm it can cause. Activated charcoal will bind with vitamins, minerals and antioxidants in your food, and the vitamins in fruit and veg probably won’t be absorbed because of the charcoal. It will bind with nutrients in food present in the stomach and intestines making the food less nutritious, and it will bind with some medications making it dangerous to use if medications have recently been used. You’re literally paying extra money to make your food less healthy.
