The recent 'boom' of the so -called superfood has unleashed a fervor throughout the world.Known to be elements of high nutritional value, they are attributed very varied benefits, ranging from their ability to prevent infections, even cancer or its potential to burn fat.
'Super -food' such as the berries of Acai or Goji, the Alga Klalath, Matcha tea, the root of maca, the baobab, the ginger, the lineGranada powdered, moringa, bee pollen, quinoa, reishi mushrooms, chia, stevia or mesquite seeds are some of these products that, despite knowing for years, recent research and trends have causedthat a large number of beneficial health properties are attributed to them.
First of all this enthusiasm, the nurse and expert in food Margarita Roldán, who intervened today in the XXVII Regional Congress of the Canarian Society of Family and Community Medicine (Socamfyc), wanted to "demystify" some images that have been created around certain superfoods thatIn addition, they are "expensive products and, therefore, complicated to incorporate in the diets of many of the families that pass through primary care consultations."
For Margarita Roldán, the key is that "very healthy and balanced" menus can be developed "by very little money, so the promotion of healthy eating should never be linked to the economic abilities of the patient and his family."You can eat just as healthy than with superfoods, using more affordable substitutes with similar nutritional value and avoiding fashions, which is normally what the purchase basket increases," Roldán insisted, for whom the main battle of health professionalsIt must be to promote healthy habits and a healthy eating for the whole family.
There are no anti -Cancer foods
Roldán also made it clear that, although some of these products have properties to prevent cancer, and there are even diets that help overcome it when it occurs, we should not talk about "anti -Cáncence" food, because simply, "they do not exist," he said.The so -called super -food, he added, "are healthy and beneficial," but of course they are neither a miracle product nor the solution to the health problems of a person who does not systematically carry a healthy diet."It is not that I affirmed it," he said, "but that I rely on scientific studies at Harvard University or the American Anti -Cancer Association," he added.
This specialist said that citizens are promoting, with the "to the worst" change of their eating habits, a greater incidence of diseases such as skin, colon, breast or even lung cancer.In the last 50 years, said Roldán, "we have gone from the Mediterranean diet used by our grandparents, based on legumes, vegetables or fruits, the boom of fast food and precooked food, in which saturated fats and thesalt, mainly, in addition to the fact that a large amount of calories are consumed very quickly and even in small portions. "
"If to these accelerated and excessive diets we add tobacco, the lack of physical exercise, it is understandable that not only the prevalence of cancer has been shot but also to suffer a heart attack, a stroke or any atherovascular disease," he said.
Margarita Roldán has been a nurse since 1991, and a diabetes educator since 2010. In 2012 she became coach in advanced food.Within Socamfyc, Roldán coordinates the Diabetes, Nutrition and Food Working Group, the only one at the national level that brings together nutrition and diseases of diabetes and obesity, both of high prevalence in the Canary Islands.
This working group isHighly involved in monitoring patients with diabetes melitus, since one in four people diagnosed in the Canary Islands, not only suffer from diabetes, but obesity, hypertension and dyslipemia (high cholesterol).