By Jason Cholewa , Ph.D.
If you’ve been around the health and fitness world for even
a few days you have no doubt hear the term “superfood”. In fact, nearly every internet guru and
magazine has a list of their super foods.
Dave Palumbo notes salmon, Charles Poliquin has avocados and blueberries
in his top 10, Strong Lifts has a list of 20 including whole eggs and dates,
and it goes on from there. There is no doubt these foods are nutritious and
offer health benefits, but are they superfoods? I regress and consult Wikipedia:
“Superfood is an unscientific marketing term used in various contexts.
For example, it is sometimes used to describe food with high nutrient or phytochemical
content that may confer health benefits, with few properties considered to be
negative…”.
Given the benefits of eating a wide variety of food, from
here on the word superfood be left out of our vocabulary; however, there is a
food with some impressive health and fitness benefits that has not received its
due press in the fitness media. Benefits such as increased energy expenditure,
fat oxidation, aerobic endurance, reduced inflammation, and even the ability to
treat headaches.
Before we dive into the science of this food, let’s first
look at some anecdotal evidence. The Cholewa clan has gathered and consumed
these for the past 50 years. How dominant is the Cholewa clan? Our patriarch,
Mitch Cholewa, was still dead lifting 200 pound random objects in his 70’s.
Mike Cholewa cycles 100’s of miles a day, in his late 50’s, in cold New England
winters. Finally, there is the complete dominance of the third generation physical
specimens.
All this by eating a few chili peppers! What’s that, you
don’t like spicy foods? Blasphemy! Did you know that people living in developed
countries who eat a large quantity of spicy foods (> 9 jalapeno peppers per
day) are leaner than those living in developed countries who don’t (Wahlqvist
& Wattanapenpaiboon, 2001)?
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