While these seemingly mundane foods don’t attract the hype or hefty price tags of trendy foods like kale, acai berries and raw cacao, they’ve been proven to pack a powerful punch nutritionally and topped an interactive graph of foods rated by strength of evidence on data website Information Is Beautiful.
Languishing at the bottom of tested foods were some equally surprising trendy inclusions: goji berries, acai berries, carob and quinoa. Coconut oil was rated between promising and good for weight loss.
Some of the foods, it should be noted, score lowly because of a lack of human trials.
Without further ado, here are the graph’s surprising top 10 most powerful “superfoods”and why*:
1. BARLEY: this humble grain lowers cholesterol
2. GARLIC: reduced blood pressure, especially in those with high blood pressure
3. OATS: another cheap grain that’s shown to lower cholesterol
4. OLIVE OIL: may prevent artery-hardening, reduces risks for heart disease
5. PRUNES: works better than psyllium husk at treating mild to moderate constipation
6. PULSES: hippie staples of lentils/beans help reduce cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar and risk of obesity, diabetes and maybe heart disease
7. HONEY: kills infections when applied to wounds, promotes healing when eaten by killing bacteria and reducing inflammation
8. FISH OIL/OMEGA 3: people with advanced cancer benefit from this; increases their appetite, weight, quality of life and health
9. ALMONDS: lowers “bad” LDL cholesterol
10. HAWTHORN: extract improves heart function and symptoms in patients with chronic heart failure
*Source: informationisbeautiful.net
