Male Fertility: Here’s How Diet And Exercise Can Help Boost Fertility In Men

Mild to moderate exercise helps in releasing feel-good neurochemicals from the brain, improves libido, improves sleep quality, and may enhance fertility and sexual function.

By: Dr. Uma Maheshwari M Updated: Nov 24, 2022 11:11 IST

This article is a repost which originally appeared on DOCTOR NDTV.

Edited for content. The opinions expressed in this article may not reflect the opinions of this site’s editors, staff or members.

Our takes:

‧ Testosterone levels play a large part in sperm count.

‧ Obesity can decrease testosterone and increase estrogen in males.

‧ Regular exercise can improve testosterone levels and sperm count.

The sperm count, motility, structure, integrity of the DNA contained in the sperm and physicochemical properties of the semen are the determining factors of male fertility. The environment for sperm production must be improved as much as possible in order to maximize a man’s reproductive potential. Sperm count and quality are substantially impacted by factors affecting testosterone levels.

Sperm count can also be impacted by illness, including cancer and its treatment, infections and certain genetic abnormalities.

Obesity reverses the normal ratio of testosterone to estrogen in an estrogen-dominant milieu. Falling/reversal of testosterone to estrogen ratio brings about decreased libido, reproductive potential and sexual dysfunction in men.

However, healthy lifestyle choices like adequate sleep, regular exercise, maintaining optimum weight, and a balanced diet can boost the hormones that regulate sperm production and improve fertility.

Role of exercise in male fertility

Men can benefit from regular exercise by achieving and maintaining a healthy weight as well as improving their cardiovascular health. There are certain limitations, but mild to moderate exercise can help improve semen parameters and increase male reproductive potential. Before beginning an exercise regimen, men with existing health issues must consult their doctor.

Mild to moderate exercise helps in releasing feel-good neurochemicals from the brain, elevates mood, improves libido, enhances metabolism, loses/maintains weight, improves sleep quality, enhances cardiovascular health, and may enhance fertility and sexual function.

The best exercises for maintaining a healthy lifestyle and optimising fertility involve a good mix of resistance and cardiovascular activity.

Exercises that can bother the prostate and strain the reproductive organs should be done in moderation, such as triathlons and competitive cycling. Excessive exercise & extremes of physical strain decrease testosterone. Moreover, methods of safeguarding fertility are also crucial, such as using crotch shields during contact sports, avoiding saunas, or upgrading to a better-quality ergonomic bicycle seat that relieves excess pressure on the male pelvic anatomy.

Exercising in sunlight will also provide the benefit of improving vitamin D levels in the body.

Role of diet in Fertility

Choice of a healthy source of complex carbohydrates, class 1 proteins & polyunsaturated fats are essential in consideration with individual dietary choices and preferences.

The ratio between carbohydrates, proteins, and fat should be maintained. Fiber is an essential part of each meal. It improves satiety.

Foods with low glycemic index should be favoured.

Antioxidant-rich rainbow diet with nuts, fresh fruits, and vegetables with adequate amounts of all essential minerals, vitamins & micronutrients is best for general health and fertility.

The calorie intake should be commensurate with the level of physical activity.

Adequate hydration is integral to a good diet.

Processed food high in fats, carbohydrates, sodium, and sugar, and poor in fiber is detrimental to health. However, enjoying an occasional indulgence will motivate you to follow a healthy diet.

Healthy snacking is to be encouraged. So, it is important to be disciplined in following a healthy diet.

Men should be advised to quit smoking and minimise alcohol intake.

A healthy lifestyle, weight management, adequate cardiovascular activity, and dietary support are crucial to guide the male partner in maximizing his fertility and attaining parenthood. It will take time, commitment, and dedication to making these lifestyle adjustments. These are minor adjustments that need to be adopted and adapted to. These measures will eventually navigate the path to general fitness and enhanced fertility.

Sea Moss: Benefits, Nutrition, and How to Prepare It

Sea Moss: Benefits, Nutrition, and How to Prepare It

Written by Lauren Panoff, MPH, RD on February 12, 2021 — Medically reviewed by Adrienne Seitz, MS, RD, LDN

This article is a repost which originally appeared on Healthline

Edited for content.

Sea moss is a spiny sea vegetable that’s primarily harvested for use in health supplements and as a thickening ingredient in commercial foods.

If you’ve heard about sea moss supplements, you may wonder how you could use them and whether there are other ways to consume sea moss.

This article examines the potential benefits and downsides of sea moss, including its nutritional content and how to prepare it.

What is sea moss?

Sea moss, scientifically known as Chondrus crispus, is a type of algae or seaweed. It grows in waters along the rocky Atlantic coasts, primarily between North America and Europe.

It’s an edible sea plant similar to other seaweeds, algae, and other familiar leafy sea vegetables like kelp or dulse.

Sea moss grows in a number of colors, such as various shades of green, yellow, purple, red, brown, and black.

The most common varieties that grow in the warmer waters are generally red and often called Irish moss.

Summary

Sea moss is a spiny sea plant that’s similar to other seaweeds and algae. The most common variety in commercial products is red and often called Irish moss.

Sea moss nutrients

Red seaweeds like sea moss contain an array of vitamins and minerals. They’re naturally low in calories, fat, and sugar, and they contain a small amount of plant protein.

A 4-tablespoon (20-gram) serving of raw Irish sea moss provides the following:

  • Calories: 10
  • Protein: 0.5 grams
  • Total fat: 0 grams
  • Total carbs: 3 grams
  • Fiber: 0.5 grams
  • Total sugar: 0 grams
  • Calcium: 1% of the Daily Value (DV)
  • Iron: 10% of the DV
  • Magnesium: 7% of the DV
  • Phosphorus: 2% of the DV
  • Zinc: 4% of the DV
  • Copper: 3% of the DV

Like other sea vegetables, sea moss is also a naturally good source of iodine, a micronutrient necessary for thyroid health.

Additionally, red seaweeds like sea moss are full of antioxidants, which are compounds that help protect your cells from disease-causing oxidative damage.

Summary

Sea moss is low in calories and fat, and it contains a small amount of protein. It offers a variety of vitamins and minerals and is a good source of iodine and antioxidants.

Uses

Today sea moss is mainly used as a source of vitamins and minerals to benefit overall health.

You can most commonly find it in supplement form. Some supplement companies sell it in raw form, as a gel or powder, or as an oral capsule or gummy.

Companies also sell sea moss as a component of supplements combined with turmeric, bladderwrack, and burdock root, claiming this combination benefits overall well-being, especially immunity, thyroid, digestive, and joint health.

Sea moss has a long history of use as a food-thickening agent. It’s the only natural source of carrageenan, a thickener that manufacturers use in foods like ice cream, cottage cheese, nondairy milks, and even baby formula.

Summary

People primarily harvest sea moss for its carrageenan, a natural food thickener. It has a high micronutrient content, so companies also use it to make consumer health supplements and gels.

Potential benefits

Many people use sea moss for its purported health benefits. However, it’s important to note that many of the benefits of sea moss specifically are anecdotal and lack solid scientific evidence.

There are more studies on the health benefits of seaweed and algae than on sea moss itself. Still, some of these benefits may also apply to sea moss because they grow in similar environments.

However, scientists need to conduct more research on sea moss to investigate its particular effects.

Some of the main potential benefits of using sea moss may include:

  • May support thyroid health. Seaweeds are rich in iodine, a micronutrient necessary for healthy thyroid function.
  • May support immunity. One study in salmon found that supplemental seaweed improved immune modulation and immune response. Scientists need to do more research to see whether it also supports immunity in humans.
  • May improve gut health. Seaweeds are a good source of live bacteria and fiber, which both support a healthy gut microbiome.
  • May help support weight loss. Seaweeds and microalgae are rich in fiber that can help you feel full and prevent overeating. Studies have shown that a compound in seaweed called fucoxanthin promoted fat metabolism in rats.
  • May promote heart health. Some studies have found that seaweed reduces LDL (bad) cholesterol and acts as a blood thinner, which may help reduce the risk of heart disease.
  • May improve blood sugar management. One study found that the compound fucoxanthin in seaweed reduced high blood sugar. Another study found that a compound in seaweed called alginate prevented blood sugar spikes in pigs.
  • Anecdotal benefits for fertility. There’s no scientific evidence that sea moss specifically promotes fertility in men or women. However, some people use it as a traditional fertility treatment. Scientists need to investigate this further.

While the potential health benefits of sea moss are promising, it’s important to note that most of the research is based on seaweed, not sea moss specifically. The studies were also conducted in test tubes or animals, not in humans.

Therefore, scientists need to do much more human research on the health effects of sea moss.

Summary

Animal and test-tube studies on seaweed, not sea moss specifically, suggest it may benefit weight loss, heart health, and blood sugar management, as well as thyroid, gut, and immune health. Scientists need to investigate the effects of sea moss in humans.

Downsides

One of the main potential downsides of sea moss is that not much research has been conducted on its benefits and nutritional makeup.

As with seaweed, the nutritional value of sea moss can vary greatly, making it difficult to know exactly what it contains and in what amounts. Much of the micronutrient and fatty acid contents of sea vegetables depend on the environment in which they grow.

While it’s a good source of iodine, the iodine content of sea moss and other seaweeds is highly variable. This can put consumers at risk of overconsumption of iodine, which could be problematic.

Taking in too much iodine can lead to hypothyroidism, or underactive thyroid. The thyroid is an important gland located in the lower front of your neck. It’s responsible for growth and metabolism.

Sea moss may also come with a risk of heavy metal consumption, as seaweed is known to absorb and store heavy metals in high amounts.

Still, the risk of toxicity appears to be low. One study examined the levels of 20 heavy metals in 8 types of seaweed from the waters around Europe and Asia. The researchers found that the amounts of heavy metals did not pose serious health risks.

Overall, it’s probably best to consume sea moss in moderation due to these unknowns.

Summary

The nutrients in sea moss can vary by the environment in which it was grown. It may contain high levels of iodine or heavy metals. However, current research has not found that sea moss contains toxic levels. Scientists need to do further research on this.

How to prepare it

You can prepare sea moss in a number of ways.

Many health food stores and online retailers sell sea moss in its raw, dried form. You can prepare a gel from this at home. This may be one of the most popular ways to consume it.

To prepare a sea moss gel, simply soak raw sea moss in water overnight, then rinse and blend it with new water until smooth. Transfer it to a container with an airtight lid and store it in the refrigerator overnight to gel.

Some supplement companies also offer sea moss that has already been prepared as a gel. According to the manufacturers, you can consume this form directly or add it to food and drinks.

Other ways to consume sea moss include mixing sea moss powder into beverages, sprinkling it over yogurt or oatmeal, and adding it to other meals.

The shelf life of sea moss depends on the form you purchased it in.

While scientific evidence is lacking, many sea moss advocates say that prepared sea moss gel should last a few weeks in the fridge, or you can freeze it.

However, it’s probably best to practice caution and only keep it for 3–5 days, as with most prepared foods and cold storage leftovers, to minimize the risk of foodborne illnesses.

Summary

You can consume sea moss in supplement or powder form, or use raw sea moss to make a gel at home. You can consume this gel on its own or add it to smoothies and other foods and beverages.

The bottom line

Sea moss, or Chondrus crispus, is a spiny sea vegetable similar to seaweeds and sea algae.

People harvest it for its carrageenan. Companies also use it as a natural thickening agent in commercial foods, as well as for use in consumer health supplements. You can also use it to make a gel at home or easily add it to foods and beverages.

Sea moss is a source of a variety of vitamins and minerals, as well as antioxidants that may benefit overall health. However, its nutritional composition can vary, and by consuming it in large amounts, you may consume high levels of iodine or heavy metals.

Overall, scientists need to do more research on the health effects of sea moss in humans to determine its efficacy in consumer health products. Still, some of the benefits appear promising based on seaweed and sea algae studies.

Celery Benefits for Men: Fact or Fiction?

Does Celery Have Benefits for Men?

Written by Daniel Preiato, RD, CSCS on November 13, 2020 — Medically reviewed by Jillian Kubala, MS, RD

This article is a repost which originally appeared on Healthline

Edited for content

Consuming celery and its juice has become increasingly popular in recent years due to its purported health benefits, one of them being improved sexual health for men.

Despite the lofty claims of various media outlets, data on the specific health benefits of consuming celery remains limited.

Nevertheless, some may wonder whether consuming celery has benefits for men.

This article details the potential effects of eating celery on several markers of men’s sexual health.

Myths vs. science

Various myths are circulating regarding celery’s purported benefits. Here’s what science has to say about some of the most common ones.

Does celery increase androsterone levels?

Androsterone is a weak steroid metabolite of the sex hormone testosterone, which naturally occurs in both sexes, although to a greater extent in men than in women (1).

This hormone, in conjunction with others, contributes to male characteristics like body hair and is found in human sweat (1).

Several media sources claim that celery is packed with androsterone and thus can lead to increased testosterone levels and sex drive in men.

Although some studies show that celery contains androsterone, there’s no evidence that eating celery or drinking its juice increases androsterone levels or improves sex drive in men.

Could this veggie be considered an aphrodisiac?

Aphrodisiacs are foods or drugs that stimulate sexual desire.

Pheromones are chemical hormones that function outside of the body and play a role in various phenomena, one of which is sexual attraction.

Androsterone is considered a pheromone, as it’s found in small amounts in human sweat.

Some claim that celery can serve as an aphrodisiac due to its pheromonic properties when eaten, though little to no research has been conducted on this subject. Therefore, more data is needed to confirm this potential effect.

SummaryWhile several media sources claim that celery can boost androsterone levels and serve as an aphrodisiac, limited to no data supports this theory, and more research is necessary.

Other potential benefits

Though data on the specific effects of celery intake on male sexual health is limited, celery may provide some other potential benefits.

May promote fertility

Celery is high in vitamin C and phytonutrients, which are antioxidant plant compounds that have been shown to have anti-inflammatory properties.

While antioxidants can help reduce disease risk, they may also promote male sexual health.

More specifically, select human studies suggest that a high antioxidant intake can help improve sperm count and motility, both vital factors in male fertility.

One animal study observed an increase in sperm production when supplementing with celery leaf extract.

However, extracts are much more concentrated and don’t necessarily compare to eating celery or drinking its juice.

Moreover, additional human research is needed to determine the specific benefits of celery on male fertility.

May help lower blood pressure

Celery and its juice may also aid blood pressure control.

This is likely due to the naturally occurring nitrates found in celery, which can promote heart health and help lower blood pressure.

What’s more, high blood pressure has been repeatedly linked to erectile dysfunction in men.

That said, regularly consuming a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, including celery, may improve symptoms of erectile dysfunction, though more data is needed on this subject to establish its specific benefits.

Lastly, depending on the degree of high blood pressure, prescription drugs may also be required. As such, it’s best to consult your healthcare provider.

High in vitamin K

Celery is a rich source of vitamin K, with 1 cup (124 grams) providing around 30% of the daily requirement for men.

Vitamin K is an important nutrient for blood clotting and bone health.

While the bacteria in your gut produce some vitamin K, dietary sources are required to help meet the daily requirement, which is around 120 mcg for men.

Regularly eating celery is a great way to help maintain vitamin K levels, in turn promoting bone health and efficient blood clotting.

SummaryThough data on the effect of celery on men’s health is limited, it may provide a few potential benefits, including promoting fertility, regulating blood pressure, and providing a rich source of vitamin K.

The bottom line

Consuming celery and its juice is an emerging health trend that claims to offer various benefits related to men’s sexual health, though data is lacking.

While it may marginally contribute to fertility, as well as help regulate blood pressure, more data is needed to determine its specific effects on other factors surrounding male sexual health.

That said, including celery and its juice as a part of an overall balanced diet is an excellent way to improve your nutritional intake and reap the benefits of the antioxidants it provides.

 

How Blueberries Became a Superfood

How Blueberries Became a Superfood

Thanks to savvy marketing, science, and luck, blueberries helped usher in a new era of health food obsession.

Doug Bierend

This article is a repost which originally appeared on Outside

Edited for content

In December 1996, John Sauve, then-executive director of the Wild Blueberry Association of North America (WBANA), received an unexpected fax. It contained an article from the latest issue of AgResearch titled: “Plant Pigments Paint a Rainbow of Antioxidants.”

At first, Sauve wasn’t sure what to make of the article. Like most people at the time, he had no real idea what antioxidants were: they were only just starting to enter the public consciousness, thanks to the emergence of mutually supportive research and marketing. Sauve definitely didn’t know they would soon become fundamental to the public perception of wild blueberries, which are smaller, more flavorful, and less common than the cultivated highbush blueberry familiar to most shoppers.

Back then, blueberries weren’t seen by many consumers as an especially healthy fruit. They were just something you put in a pie. You found them in the supermarket next to the whipped cream. In 1994, Sauve gave a presentation on the five points of appeal he’d identified for wild blueberries—none of them were related to nutrition. “We were still trying to sell blueberries because they taste good inside of muffins, and we were doing OK with that,” he says in a droll Maine accent. “Health wasn’t even on the radar screen.”

Poring over the AgResearch article, Sauve learned about a new assay test being used at Tufts University called ORAC (short for Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity), which ranked blueberries number one in terms of antioxidant activity. By this point, antioxidant compounds were known to be a factor in reducing oxidative stress, the potentially harmful overaccumulation of negatively charged atoms called free radicals. While blueberries’ place at the top of the results wasn’t clearly stated in the article, Sauve connected the dots. “I said, ‘Hey, we came out first!’” he recalls. “I had no idea what we had won, but it sounded good.”

The next day, Sauve was on the phone with Ronald Prior, who led the research at Tufts. Soon, he was meeting with Prior in Boston, along with neuroscientists Barbara Shukitt-Hale and the late James Joseph, lead author of the 2003 book The Color Code: A Revolutionary Eating Plan for Optimum Health. It became clear they had a story to tell: that blueberries carried exceptional amounts of this health-helping thing called antioxidants. There was no guarantee that the message would resonate, but WBANA bet on it anyway. “We threw our hat into the ring with health,” Sauve says, “and invested most of our money in that area.”

Savvy promotion of the fruit was about to help usher in an era of health food obsession that we’re still living in today. No longer mere tasty treat or part of a balanced diet, blueberries would become known as cancer combatants, inflammation interceptors, defenders of cognitive function—each berry a nutritional Navy SEAL.

A superfood was born.


For anyone who grew up around the Down East area of Maine, wild blueberries evoke a cherished landscape and way of life. The roughly 38,000 acres of lowbush wild blueberry fields form pastoral patchworks that stretch to the horizon. With about 500 farms devoted to wild blueberries, they’re the leading fruit crop in the state. “People have long memories here of raking when they were kids and earning money for their school clothes,” says Nancy McBrady, former executive director of the Maine Wild Blueberry Commission (WBC). “It’s very much a part of Maine’s heritage.” These berries thrive almost exclusively in the rough, acidic glacial till along the coasts of Maine, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Quebec. Their shallow, resilient rhizome roots can survive fires and, unencumbered by weeds, trees, and other competitors, will slowly fill out over years or decades. Wild blueberries aren’t really planted—they’re unleashed and managed.

Savvy promotion of the fruit was about to help usher in an era of health food obsession that we’re still living in today.


While wild blueberry acreage and farm count has shrunk in recent decades, improved crop management has steadily increased the total pounds of berries produced and sold. “It has gone up astronomically as far as the production of fruit, both for wild and cultivated,” says David Yarborough, a blueberry specialist at the University of Maine (and the man who sent Sauve the AgResearch article). “We’re producing more blueberries than we’re eating, but we just have to get more people to eat more wild blueberries, or blueberries in total.”

In 1971, the quasi–state agency WBC was formed, funded via a self-imposed tax on blueberry farmers with the mandate to “conserve and promote the prosperity and welfare” of Maine’s wild blueberry industry. While WBC mainly handles crop research, a large part of its budget is funneled to WBANA, which covers marketing and advertising for both Canadian and U.S. wild blueberries—and funding for health research that may support their marketing and advertising. “Promotion has very much been a springboard for the research,” McBrady says.

While WBANA was keen to leverage the Tufts researchers’ antioxidant findings in 1997 to the specific benefit of wild blueberries, the organization eventually agreed on a promotional health narrative that could stimulate demand for all blueberries. It committed most of its budget to the project and decided that the scientists themselves would carry the story. “Very quickly, I began to look across the country—and in other countries—for researchers that were involved in blueberries and found a number of them,” Sauve says. These researchers came from a range of fields, including neuroscience, cardiology, gerontology, and oncology. Conveniently, their work could speak to the health potential of blueberries, lending critical credibility to the nutrition-focused marketing push. While similar association groups exist for other fruits and now market on the same health research–related grounds, wild blueberries were leaders in making this connection in the public’s mind.

In August 1998, these blueberry-interested researchers, together with representatives from WBC, WBANA, and Maine’s larger blueberry growers and processors, gathered for the inaugural Wild Blueberry Research Summit. Eventually dubbed the Bar Harbor Group after the picturesque town in Maine where they meet, it’s an influential club—Steven Pratt, MD, co-author of the hit 2003 book SuperFoods RX, which is credited with mainstreaming the term, attended one of the group’s earliest meetings. Maybe you’ve caught one of the other members on Dr. Oz, singing the praises of cancer-fighting blueberries.

But while WBC is focused on Maine wild blueberries and WBANA works to support berries from Canada and the United States, the first taste of marketing success—perhaps surprisingly—came from Japan.

Maybe you’ve caught one of the other members on Dr. Oz, singing the praises of cancer-fighting blueberries.


In 1997, Sauve’s advertising partners in Japan connected him with a local eye doctor who was offering powdered blueberries to his patients. This partnership helped lend practical credibility to WBANA’s marketing: armed with a recently published study on blueberries conducted by nutrition specialist Wilhelmina Kalt, the group made the rounds at industry trade shows in Japan and interacted with the press to drive a health message focused on the fruit’s potential vision-related benefits. The data suggests that this approach worked. USDA records show some 1.3 million pounds of frozen blueberries moved from the United States to Japan in 1995; in 2000, totals reached 11.3 million. Fresh berries sold to Japan in the same time frame jumped from approximately 50,000 pounds to 3.1 million.

Domestic success was close behind. In July 1998, WBANA and its advertising partners ran a full-page ad in a special edition of Health with a colorful chart and simple language trumpeting blueberries as number one in antioxidants among fruits and vegetables. In 1999, Prevention published a multipage spread on the subject with the headline “The Miracle Berry.” Sauve also says the popularity of smoothies starting in the 1990s was a real game changer—the fact that smoothies are so often associated with blueberries is largely the result of cross-promotional marketing efforts focusing partly on the antioxidant story.

It’s tough to pin an entire industry’s trajectory to one set of marketing strategies, but there’s no denying the growth. In 1998, Maine alone produced about 63 million pounds of wild blueberries; in 2000, that number nearly doubled to 110 million. And, according to the U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council, which used numbers from USDA’s Economic Research Service, U.S. per capita consumption of the fruit grew 599 percent between 1999 to 2014.

Still, all of this was accomplished without much messaging from anyone as to what antioxidants actually do.

Wild blueberries have a lot going for them, in terms of branding. They’re a glorious shade of blue, they come with a great set of stories, they’re full of enough complex molecules to stain your fingers when you squeeze them. But berry crop sales are a competitive scene, and the market for antioxidant-rich foods has grown crowded. It might be said that, to some extent, wild blueberries are now suffering from their own success—and demanding new marketing tactics. “You look around, and lots of foods talk about antioxidants,” says McBrady, executive director of WBC. “I don’t think it’s necessarily the most special thing right now.”

The goal for food advocacy groups like WBANA is to elevate their product, and nowadays it seems any food that’s high in antioxidant activity wants to label itself a superfood, even if the definition of that term is unclear. “Superfood is a marketing term. It has no nutritional meaning,” says author and NYU professor Marion Nestle. In her book, Unsavory Truth, she dives into the history and strategy behind nutrition marketing and the broader nutritional picture that it often overlooks. “The key to eating healthfully is to eat a wide variety of these foods so their nutrient contents complement each other,” she says.

That’s not to say there’s nothing to the research backing blueberries’ health claims—indeed, there’s a wealth of compelling evidence. In work led by Shukitt-Hale, one of the Tufts researchers Sauve first met, for example, rats showed improved memory and cognition after a steady diet of the fruit. Bits of the pigmented compounds found in blueberries were even found in their brains, suggesting the berry’s ability to cross the blood-brain barrier and access areas relevant to learning and memory. More recent tests involving human subjects suggest that the compounds can help lower blood pressure and reduce degradations in mobility in older adults. Seeking to set wild blueberries apart from cultivated blueberries, researchers are looking into the specific health implications of the former’s extra density of phytochemicals, defensive compounds credited for their resilience to harsh climates. There is some dispute over whether the difference is meaningful.

Still, all of this was accomplished without much messaging from anyone as to what antioxidants actually do.


But much of the ballyhooed benefits of antioxidant-rich foods in general are tough to pin down. Research into the potential merits of antioxidants such as vitamin C, vitamin E, and beta-carotene seem contrary to the findings of berry-funded research. There is even research to suggest that certain antioxidant activity can work against one’s health. Eventually, use of the assay ORAC to upsell antioxidants became so widespread that in 2010, the U.S. Department of Agriculture stopped publishing results from the test “due to mounting evidence that the values indicating antioxidant capacity have no relevance” to definite effects on human health. (For what it’s worth, Sauve thinks the USDA was reacting to misinterpretations first put forward by unscrupulous raisin salesmen.)

For its part, WBANA and its marketing partners are evolving strategies by shifting focus to anthocyanins—the fruit’s complex pigmented compounds—and their anti-inflammatory potential. Promoting flavor, which was cast aside in the ’90s to focus on the health story, is also coming back in style for wild blueberries as “real,” “raw,” and “wild” foods gain market traction. WBANA’s new target is the fast-growing “lifestyles of health and sustainability” consumer category, a much sought-after demographic first described by sociologist Paul Ray and psychologist Sherry Anderson. These consumers don’t just prefer healthier food—they also seek food that is high-quality, minimally processed, and environmentally sustainable. That means appealing to broader wellness sensibilities, as well as certain benefits suggested by research.

But perhaps consumers should just focus on the value of eating more whole fruits and vegetables in general. As Shukitt-Hale will attest, the case for wild blueberries is not as cut-and-dried as saying that antioxidants are good for you. “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” she says. “There’s something about the synergy of that whole food and the compounds in it. So, when people say, ‘What is the active ingredient,’ I hate that question, because I don’t think there is an ‘active ingredient.’”

If you’re looking for antioxidants, after all, you can find them in all kinds of fruit. “The nutrient claims for blueberries are not specious; they are just overhyped,” Nestle says. “Blueberries are nutritious and delicious. What blueberry trade associations are doing is simply marketing.”

Ultimately, the reason for eating blueberries—or any fruit or vegetable—probably shouldn’t require a scientist’s explanation. “It never occurred to me to think about the phytochemical composition,” says Nestle, who grows her own cultivated blueberries at home. “I just love the way they taste.”

Doug Bierend is a Brooklyn-based writer interested in food, fungi, sustainability, technology, media, and culture.