To say 'toxic superfood' is to say 'a poisonous yet beneficial nutrient-rich food'. So, can poisons be beneficial to health? Yes and no, as Otillia Richmond reminds us in her new release The Human Nature of Need and Feed: "the dose makes the poison", stating that the most basic substances, such as oxygen and water, are lethal in excess.

Toxins are found across living nature as defense mechanisms to increase reproductive survival or as chemicals resulting from earth's compounds. We are familiar with poison frogs and pufferfish, water hemlock and belladonna, arsenic and lead, but few think of plant food as toxic. 

Superfoods are recognized as nutritional and beneficial for human health. Headlines and industry turn food into superfood. Superfoods are simply plant foods; the foods that promote human health are plant foods. Therefore, plants foods are by nature and definition 'superfoods' for humans.

Plant foods do contain what some call anti-nutrients, compounds recognized to be without benefit and potentially dangerous to human health. Yesterday it was phytoestrogens and lectins making news; today it is phytic acids, oxalates, and goitrogens. Notwithstanding, nutritional science still recommends a diet high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and seeds and low in animal and processed foods. See link below.

So, can plant foods make you sick? Are they really toxic? In the 2023 book, Toxic Superfoods, Sally K. Norton, MPH says "yes", for those containing oxalates, as did Steven R. Gundry, in The Plant Paradox about food containing lectins.

Norton left out the many other considerations attributing to the litany of modern human diseases mentioned. Her neglect to the environment and the so numerous chemical exposures experienced today, and her apathy towards prebiotic fiber and probiotic organisms truly oversimplifies the risk oxalates pose to human health.

Food for Thought:

People are eating almonds and cashews, 24-7-365 and, adding them to everything. Almond flour is replacing wheat flour in gluten free baking; almond milk is replacing soy and dairy milk; cashews are replacing dairy creams, butters, and cheese. Nuts are found in protein bars, trail mixes, granola, muesli, sauces, and not the least, giant sized containers at reasonable prices. 

Healthy green drinks, smoothies, protein powders, supplements, and superfood shakes too, are an oxymoron. Before a blender, industry, trade, and controlled environments, people were without means to consume foods out of context: spinach outside its short season, protein and fiber as isolates, synthetic vitamins, plant compounds extracted from the whole, or pulverized fiber, rendering it useless for our biome, therefore disabling the nutrient providers and toxin consumers in our gut.

Blame your troubles on gluten, oxalate, or whatever, but, considerations to how much, what kind, and when one consumes plant foods should be included. Unadulterated whole plant foods, chewed well and consumed in moderation and season, allowed the human species to advance for millennia; modernity and all its creations have made people sick. Time spent reading The Human Nature of NEED and FEED can explain how.

                                                              -P.R.S