Superfoods

Thirty-four ingredients, most of them powders, and every one of them is food rather than a supplement. Here is where each comes from and how it gets into your day.

What are superfoods, and are they actually good for you

Superfood is a marketing word. It has no legal definition anywhere in the EU, which is why you will never see it on a nutrition panel. What the word usually points at is real enough though: foods that carry a lot of nutrition per gram, so a spoonful does something a spoonful of flour does not.

Where that translates into a claim we are allowed to make, we will say so plainly. Vitamin C contributes to the normal function of the immune system and to the reduction of tiredness and fatigue, and camu camu and acerola are both genuinely rich in it. Protein contributes to the maintenance of muscle mass, which covers hemp protein at 48 percent, whole hemp seeds and soy chunks. Iron contributes to normal formation of red blood cells, and raw cacao beans carry plenty of it. For the mushrooms, the resin and most of the botanicals, no health claim is authorised, so we describe what they are and leave it there.

The superfoods you can buy here

Berries and fruits

Camu camu (Myrciaria dubia) is the headline act: its fresh fruit holds around 3 grams of vitamin C per 100 grams, where lemon juice manages 30 to 40 milligrams. It is fiercely sour, which is why it arrives as a powder you measure rather than a fruit you eat. Acerola is the mellow alternative, near neutral in flavour. Goji berries come dried from plantations along China's Yellow River, freeze-dried acai tastes like blackberry crossed with dark chocolate, and golden berries land somewhere near pineapple and mango.

Powders and roots

Moringa oleifera leaf, capped at 5 grams a day, works as a green seasoning more than a smoothie base. Triphala is three dried Indian fruits milled together, amla among them, and amla is sold separately here as well. Baobab is dry and citrus-sharp. Buckwheat is not wheat and not a grain, but the seed of Fagopyrum esculentum, carrying quercetin and rutin.

Mushroom blends and one resin

The 7 Mushrooms Organic Mix is certified organic and halal, and includes jelly fungus (Tremella fuciformis). Chaga extract runs at a minimum of 30 percent polysaccharides and grows as a conk on birch trunks. Button and field mushroom powders are the least glamorous things on this page and quietly the most useful, since both work as a salt-free savoury seasoning. Shilajit is the odd one out entirely: a mountain resin rather than a plant, at 20 percent fulvic acid and enhanced with selenium.

Six ways to buy raw cacao

The cacao range is the one part of this shelf that genuinely needs explaining, because the same bean arrives in six different shapes and two different origins.

The instant mix is the one to know about: Peruvian cold-pressed paste blended with coconut blossom sugar, poppy seed, chilli, tonka bean, Ceylon cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom and vanilla. None of it is psychotropic, whatever the ceremony language around cacao suggests.

How to use superfoods every day

Most of this range is a spoon into something you were already making. Powders go into yoghurt, porridge or a smoothie; the mushroom powders go into stock, gravy and anything that wants depth. Nettle leaves want a teaspoon and a ten minute steep, and taste like spinach met a cucumber. Goji Berry Tea is caffeine-free and works iced, built on apple, hibiscus, pear, goji and sunflower and cornflower blossom, and it comes out an improbable candy pink.

Why buy your superfoods from Zamnesia

Almost everything here is certified organic, and the few things that are not say so on the label rather than hiding it, acerola powder included, which contains maltodextrin from corn. Powders keep best sealed, cool and dark, and most carry a 24 month shelf life from manufacture. Buy the smaller pack of anything you have not tried, because a kilo of something fiercely sour is a long-term commitment.