Is Your Superfood Actually Super for You?

I love acai. I want to be upfront about that. I am not here to tell you to stop eating it or that it is bad for you or that enjoying an acai bowl is somehow wrong. It tastes good. That is a completely valid reason to eat something.

I also love matcha. Everything matcha, genuinely. Matcha lattes, matcha desserts, matcha in my morning routine. I am fully in it and I am not apologising for that. Growing up with Japanese roots probably means I am more in tune with matcha than most, and the research backs that up. Matcha is genuinely one of the most well-studied ingredients in the world, loaded with antioxidants, L-theanine for calm focus, and a clean sustained energy that is nothing like the spike and crash of coffee.

But here is the thing. The matcha I had in Kyoto and the matcha latte from a cafe in Paris are not the same product. They share a name. That is about where the similarities end. Fresh ceremonial grade matcha from Kyoto, made with stone-ground leaves, prepared in the traditional way, tastes like nothing you have ever had from a paper cup. The color is different. The texture is different. The taste is incomparably more complex. And the nutritional profile of fresh high-grade matcha is genuinely not comparable to the low-grade powder that gets mixed with oat milk and sugar and sold as a wellness drink in cities around the world.

That is the reality. And it is the same reality for almost every ingredient the wellness industry has globalized.

But I want to talk about something that has been sitting with me for a while about the way the wellness industry markets superfoods, because I think there is a question worth asking that almost nobody is asking.

It started with miso soup. I was watching Japanese television and a segment came on about how miso soup is incredibly good for your health. Gut health, immune function, inflammation, the whole thing. And I paused and thought, ok but is this universally true? Would miso soup have the same effect on a Congolese person that it has on someone who grew up eating fermented soy every day of their life?

The honest answer is probably not. And that one question opened something up for me.

Here is what the science actually shows, in plain language. When an ethnic group eats a specific diet for thousands of years, natural selection gradually favors genetic mutations that help process those foods more efficiently.

Japanese populations, for example, carry a specific gut bacterium that contains an enzyme which allows them to break down the complex carbohydrates in seaweed and fermented soy far more efficiently than people without that ancestral background. That bacterium is passed from mother to child. It is part of your inherited microbiome. Which means someone of Japanese descent eating miso soup every day is not just eating a healthy food. They are feeding a gut ecosystem that has literally evolved to extract maximum benefit from exactly that ingredient.

Now contrast that with the wellness industry's approach to superfoods, which is essentially: this ingredient is powerful, therefore everyone should consume it, therefore we will market it universally and sell it globally. Acai is the most obvious example. Acai is a genuinely nutritious fruit. It contains healthy fats, fiber, and polyphenols. But biologically there is no essential nutrient in acai that you cannot get from other fruits. If someone of East Asian descent eats an acai bowl they will absorb antioxidants, yes. But they would get the exact same antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefit from eating blueberries, dark grapes, traditional Chinese black sesame, or goji berries, often at a fraction of the cost, and from ingredients their body has a much longer relationship with.

The superfood is not the miracle. The marketing is.

And then there is the sustainability question which the wellness conversation almost completely ignores. Avocado is a perfect example. I love avocados. They are genuinely good, genuinely nutritious, genuinely delicious. But avocado is native to Mexico and Central America. Importing it to Japan or Thailand or Ghana at scale has a real environmental cost. So I started thinking, should avocado be a daily wellness staple for someone living in Bangkok? Or should it be something I enjoy with genuine appreciation and curiosity when I am actually in Mexico?

Which brings me to something I think about a lot. There is eating miso soup in Japan, and there is eating miso soup out of a packet in a supermarket in London. There is drinking fresh ceremonial matcha in Kyoto, and there is ordering a matcha latte from a cafe in Paris. These are not the same experiences and they are probably not the same thing nutritionally either. Miso made with traditional methods, from Japanese water sources, served as part of a meal that has existed in that cultural context for centuries, is a completely different product from the miso paste that gets scooped into a mug at a wellness cafe in New York. The ingredient is technically identical. Everything around it is not.

The same is true for avocado eaten in Mexico where it is ripe, local, seasonal, affordable, and part of a cuisine that has known exactly what to do with it for generations. Versus an avocado shipped across the world, ripened artificially, and placed on sourdough toast because the wellness internet declared it a superfood. And fresh acai eaten in Brazil is a completely different product from the frozen pulp blended into bowls everywhere else. People in Brazil who eat fresh acai regularly are not eating it as a wellness ritual. They are just eating food that grows near them.

Context is everything. Freshness is everything. Cultural relationship is everything. And the wellness industry strips all of that out, standardizes the ingredient, ships it globally, and sells it as a universal health solution.

As someone who is half Ghanaian and half Japanese, I have two incredibly rich food traditions sitting in my own heritage. Baobab. Moringa. Hibiscus. Fonio. Miso. Wakame. Shiso. Umeboshi. Matcha. Ingredients that are rooted in my ancestry, that my body likely has a much longer and more efficient relationship with, that are often more affordable and more sustainable than the imported wellness darlings sitting on the shelves of high-end health stores. And yet the wellness industry would have me reaching for maca powder from Peru before it would point me toward moringa, which has been growing in West Africa for centuries.

Here is how I actually think about this now.

Superfoods from other cultures are interesting and worth exploring, not as health hacks but as a way to connect with and learn about other food traditions. If I eat an acai bowl I want to think about where it comes from, what it means culturally, why people in the Amazon have eaten it for generations. That is a beautiful thing. Food as a way of understanding the world. And when you travel, eat the miso in Japan. Drink the fresh matcha in Kyoto. Eat the avocado in Mexico. Eat the acai in Brazil. Eat them in their actual context, with the freshness and the cultural meaning intact. That is a genuinely nourishing experience.

But when you are back home and you want actual daily nutritional benefit, you are probably going to get more from searching for ingredients that are rooted in your own food heritage and have a biological relationship with your specific body. Not because imported superfoods are bad. But because the most powerful ingredients for your body might already exist in the food traditions you came from.

The wellness industry sells universality because universality is easier to market. But bodies are not universal. Ancestry is not universal. Gut microbiomes are not universal.

Your grandmother's kitchen probably knew things about nourishing your specific body that no wellness brand has figured out yet.

That is worth thinking about.

Sources

Luma Health: "11 unique Asian foods that supercharge your health"lumahealth.com/health-insurance/awareness/11-unique-asian-foods-supercharge-health

Distribution Armel, December 2025: "African Superfoods: Top 4 and Benefits"distributionarmel.com/en/blogue/african-superfoods-top-4-and-benefits-2025