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“ANTIOXIDANT/SUPERFOODS”

YOU THINK Eating these foods with stop you from getting cancer

WHAT IT MEANS The term "superfood" is the nutrition buzz word of the millennium, with a growing number of fruits, vegetables, juices and cereal products carrying the superfood label.

While it’s true that some foods have particularly high contents of essential nutrients, other items such as special juices, supplements and expensive bars and shakes are generally unlikely to be worth the extra spend.

Much of the superfood title is given because certain fresh foods have high antioxidant contents. The thing with antioxidants is that their potency largely depends on their freshness, which means packaged foods are unlikely to offer the same benefits.

GET SMART Try juicing some fresh veggies yourself for your own superfood. Always remember, the brighter and fresher your fruits and veggies, the better they are for you. Try not to be sucked into spending large amounts of money on processed foods that claim to be high in antioxidants.

MORE PHRASES DECODED...

This can mean the product is reduced in fat or kilojoules compared with others. But it can also refer to a lighter colour – as in light olive oil, which has the same amount of fat and kilojoules as other olive oils.

When was the last time you ate just half a cup of ice-cream? Manufacturers often set serving sizes artificially small as a way of reducing numbers for fat, sugar and kilojoules.

The product contains less than two milligrams of cholesterol per serving. Bread and lollies are often labelled cholesterol free, but unless they contain milk or eggs, they probably never had it to begin with. Cholesterol only comes from animal sources.

While the tick may identify products that contain a better ratio of fats in the foods, it does not mean that the food is the best choice nutritionally – simply that a company has paid for the endorsement.

A number of lollies, soft drinks, cordials and drinks contain this label, but are all products packed with sugar and offer no nutritional value.