Is there anyone more passionate, dedicated, or knowledgeable about the tremendous benefits of superfoods to our bodies, minds, and planet? Not likely. Wherever you are in terms of what goes in your mouth, David Wolfe presents a compelling claim to add a little more vitality to your plate.
Angela Bassett, actress and author
David Wolfe has written a brilliant, wisdom-filled, illuminating book that is essential reading for everyone interested in reaching optimal health! Superfoods are indeed the food of the future for a healthier world.
Patricia Bragg, ND, PhD, author and health crusader
David Wolfe has become a dedicated expert in the field of living and superfoods. Anything he writes, I personally read and support. I consider David Wolfes works on superfoods a must-read.
Jay Kordich (The Father of Juicing), author and entrepreneur
The knowledge David Wolfe brings us is vital for reaching the ultimate level of health, clarity, and understanding about the power of foods to heal ourselves and the planet. I believe that David, with his wealth of information, is hands-down one of the most important people of this century.
Justin BUA, artist and author of The Beat of Urban Art
David Wolfes commitment, not just to humanity but to Mother Earth herself, is second to none. He has discovered the gift of his true purpose and is unabashedly sharing it with the world. The energy of compassion and pure love that he pours into every plant and everyone is the same. I know few people more committed to us all finding our inner joy through the miracle of growing and eating the best food ever and thereby experiencing every day as The Best Day Ever.
Demian Lichtenstein, motion picture producer and director
Other Books by David Wolfe
The Sunfood Diet Success System
Eating for Beauty
Naked Chocolate
Amazing Grace
This book is dedicated
to my Momthe best mom ever!
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the following individuals for their direct or indirect contribution to the extraordinary project that became this book:
Mike Adams
Rick Blair
Brian Bowers
Sandy Chocolate Face Brzozowski
Greg Cipes
Ian Clark
Kerrie Dancing Butterfly Cushing
Dandelion
Groovinda Dasi
Len Foley
Juliana Garske
Lucien Gauthier
Michele Gauthier
Rebecca Gauthier
Nick Good
Angela Hartman
Aaron Howard
Vance Logan
Larry Ostrovsky
Eric Pasimo
Camille Super Goji Girl Perrin
Aarona Pichinson
Jay Pope
Kimberly Reschke
Andrew Rhodes
Erin Sojourner
Sara Thompson
Chad Ashley Vandenberg
Mitch Wallis
Robert Ra Weismandel
Richard Grossinger, Doug Reil, Philip Smith, Anne Connolly, and the entire team at North Atlantic Books
Table of Contents
Introduction
Why Superfoods? What Are Superfoods?
A new day is dawning on the world of nutrition. Our nutrition potential has finally caught up to our technology. Shipping, communication, computers, and increased knowledge about nutrition are allowing us to access incredible quality food products from around the planet in a way that had heretofore been impossible or simply unknown.
More and more people are opening up to organic foods and natural health. The organic food movement is taking grocery store chains by storm. We are approaching a critical mass of consumers shifting their purchasing power toward organic products. Would you like to join this leading edge of discovery and find out how to eat the healthiest foods possible?
These special foods fall into three ancient food groups that we are rediscovering in our present-day culture:
- Living, raw plant foods: These are important everyday foods that include most fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, seaweeds, sprouts, grasses, fresh herbs, and fermented foods (e.g., sauerkraut). Living, raw plant foods and raw diets are the subject of my previous books The Sunfood Diet Success System and Eating for Beauty.
Superfoods: These include foods that have a dozen or more unique properties, not just one or two. For example, the goji berry is a source of complete protein, immune-stimulating polysaccharides, liver-cleansing betaine, anti-aging sesquiterpenes, antioxidants, over twenty trace minerals, and much, much more.
Superherbs: These include herbs that have super tonic and adaptogenic properties as well as many other unique gifts. For example, the reishi mushroom helps support a healthy immune system, heart, lungs, and kidneys, and assists with rejuvenating brain and connective tissue. Another example, cats claw (ua de gato), a superherb from Peru, contains a monoamine oxidase inhibitor that makes you feel happier and has properties that help your immune system fight off viruses. Superherbs will be the subject of a future book, and are contained in some of my recipes here.
We truly live in a time of unprecedented abundance. Having access to and knowledge of the worlds greatest superfoods, superherbs, and living, raw plant foods at this level of quality is a first in human history. In spite of the seemingly insurmountable problems of civilization, we are still making progress in becoming healthier and more self-aware beings. We are finally discovering the power of adding into our diet an entirely new class of foods that benefits everyone with maximum nutrition, protein, flavor, health, energy, as well as minimum calories and no trans-fatty acids.
It is becoming clearer that to achieve the best health ever, the best relationship with food ever, and to have the most fun with our food ever, we must consume superfoods, superherbs, and raw and living food cuisine. In doing so, we will find that our desire for less healthy foods will fall away naturally because we no longer find them as enjoyable.
Of these three food classes, superfoods are the most important and the focus of each page before you. Superfoods comprise a specific set of edible, incredibly nutritious plants that are not entirely classifiable as foods nor are they entirely classifiable medicines (such as herbs).
Superfoods are both a food and a medicine; they have elements of both. They are a class of the most potent, super-concentrated, and nutrient-rich foods on the planetthey have more bang for the buck than our usual foods. Extremely tasty and satisfying, superfoods have the ability to tremendously increase the vital force and energy of ones body, and are the optimum choice for improving overall health, boosting the immune system, elevating serotonin production, enhancing sexuality, and cleansing and alkalizing the body. Superfoods meet and exceed all our protein requirements, our vitamin and mineral requirements, glyconutrient (essential polysaccharide sugar) requirements, essential fatty acid requirements, immune system requirements, and so much more. Nourishing us at the deepest level possible, they are the true fuel of todays superhero. Superfoods make having The Best Day Ever fast, easy, fresh, and fun!