What You MUST Know About Buying Superfoods

06 Nov What You MUST Know About Buying Superfoods

You have to know the source of your superfoods just like you have to know the source of your foods. The ethics of superfood supplies are just like what you find in the food industry. It is easy for the dollar value to become stronger than the ethics and morality of a company even when the company appears on the surface (based on its website, packaging, and marketing wording used) to be more “green,” “cool,” “hip” or “ethical.”

There are companies who actually do testing and quality assurances themselves and go above and beyond what any guidelines require.  However, these are, unfortunately, the minority and NOT the majority. Quality assurance for superfoods, I believe, is radically misunderstood and taken for granted. That’s why I show up, follow up with everything, and test everything.

This commitment to quality will dictate the price of a superfood, especially the ones that are grown and processed in remote parts of the world. You’ll be tempted to go out and find the cheapest superfood you can find. A goji berry is a goji berry, right?! If you’re going to do this, I’d encourage you not to use superfoods at all. You are not getting a quality product that is pure, processed the best way, and the most effective for your body as well as not harboring things you don’t such as like heavy metals, GMOs, pesticides, harmful bacteria, and more.

Being out in the world the last 20 years and finding superfoods has given me first-hand experience that it is kind of like the Wild West. There is technically no one regulating the industry. Yes, organizations such as the FDA and USDA may have governances that are there to give manufacturers guidelines, but no one is checking up to see if they are being followed. Yes, there is paperwork being handed back and forth “showing” the tests happened but often you don’t know if they testing every batch or if they used the most accurate or sensitive testing method. Certainly all the “required” paperwork does virtually nothing proving or showing the potency of the ingredient or product.

There are people with criminal records who are head of nutritional companies and they are selling food and nutrients to people with very little regulation, testing, and quality assurance.

This may sounds scary – and if you’re paying a lot of money for a sub-par (or even toxic) version of a so-called “superfood,” it is.

However, I know from first-hand research and experience that there are passionate companies out there who go above and beyond the food safety guidelines to provide a quality product to people around the world.

That’s why as a superfood hunter I go and I meet people face to face. I shake their hands, I talk to them about the historic uses of superfoods, and what their cultures have learned over centuries. I don’t rely on a piece of paper or a photograph to tell me how or where these food are grown. I show up and check it out myself.

When buying superfoods it’s critical that you align yourself with companies that want to protect the quality and the efficacy of the superfoods.

You are voting with your dollars by supporting the good companies and by not supporting the sketchy ones. If you constantly buy a product that you don’t know about from companies that don’t have a great reputation, then you are supporting a company’s ability to continue to do the things that may not be advantageous for you and of course for others as well.

So what are the things to look out for? It is a very difficult thing as a consumer to sift through, which is why I try to share the superfood companies I’ve personally investigated for you. If you want to find sources yourself, I would recommend the following:

• Find the companies that have incredible transparency. Do they have their own quality assurance team? Do they go out and see, touch, feel and test their own ingredients?
• Find the companies that have either their formulator or their research and development team or their quality assurance teams available to speak with you and share some information.
• Find the companies that list their good manufacturing practices and the standards that they have. Do they share their steps of procurement and procedures? You can’t expect  to be told proprietary information that is theirs , however the general safety and quality standards they live up to can – AND SHOULD – be shared.
• Find the companies that are willing to talk about (and back up!) their relationship to the farmers. Are the company’s sourcing products by working fairly with their suppliers? Are there direct relationships with the farmers?  I would avoid anything that is not. There is terrible abuse that goes on in the farming and harvesting of crops, including superfoods, around the world. Fair trade helps ensure a fair wage and safe working conditions for the worker. If you have a happy farmer, you have a healthy product as well.

Make sure the products that you’re choosing to buy are safe and effective because if you are buying products that are not effective then you’re totally eliminating the strong ability for these superfoods to give you their unique constituents. It’s those constituents that have made the superfoods so great and perpetuated their use for sometimes thousands of years and that make your body healthy, happy, and vibrant.

Look for companies that are not out to just make money, but rather deliver on something that we all want — a superfood that provides incredible health benefits. Believe me superfoods are not just a fad; in this day and age of stress where our bodies are assaulted by so many unnatural stressors including the pollution of our water and food, electromagnetic fields, degraded air and soil quality and more we need the nutrients of these powerhouses more and more.

We want health, we want to lose weight, we want to feel great and we want to live a long time. So support companies that are passionate about contributing to that. That’s my biggest advice.

You can look for brands I personally use and I do recommend some on the SuperShop portion of SuperLife. I do get a small affiliate fee if you purchase from there, but that money goes directly to supporting SuperLife and allowing more research into superfoods and programs. And if you feel you have found another amazing company please share it with me and I will check it out!

Happy hunting!