Super or Superb?
The discussion is not new.  Whether we think it is or not the matter of what fruits or vegetables or other botanical entities are indeed “SUPER” has long been a subject of debate.  The discussion in today’s NPI Center is a prime example not only of the debate but reaches toward the fundamental issue.
Fruits are good for you.  Make no mistake.  As are vegetables.  There are some real challenges and issues though that need to be considered.  Here, first let’s step into the “WAY-BACK MACHINE” (with all apologies to Sherman and Mr. Peabody.”
Here we have now gone back in time and find ourselves with our predecessors.  These are modern humans, just not evolved to the point of civilization yet.  They are hunter-gatherers (not to mention scavengers but that is another story) and they forage a great deal.  They come across as THEIR ancestors did different things to try to eat.  Tradition and a millennium or two of experience passed down from generation to generation points these “primitive” people toward certain specific foods – fruits and some other vegetable matter.  They hold the knowledge that these things are good for them without necessarily holding the concepts of why or that “good” means anything more than just surviving.  Now one needs to remember, whether you are a creationist or Darwinian that plants evolved right along with humans.  The plants that were beneficial to the humans were the ones eaten and had their seed scattered either through being discarded or (ahem) other less tasteful means.  They moved along with humans where they roamed and humans sought them out.  No genetic modification, no engineering nor even selective breeding as yet.
As man settled into clumps of civilized areas they needed to determine how to feed these masses.  Coincident with these settlings was the business of cultivation.  Selecting specific crops to grow to feed these masses.  This then evolved into selective breeding of the crops – only the ones that grew well were cultivated and those that grew the most food for these settled masses were chosen.  This was the beginning of the split.
As man cultivated crops for their own consumption they bred specific crops and altered the evolution of these crops in ways to insure abundance without concern over “goodness.”  This forced evolution far outstripped the evolutionary pace of humans and we are not capable of absorbing whatever nutrients might be left nor able to compensate for those that have been bred out. 
Jumping back into the “WAY-BACK MACHINE” again and we land here.  In the 21st Century we have the knowledge and the ability to grow a variety of crops to feed the masses.  However, we are concerned about NUTRITION.  Anyone else see the irony?  We created this situation and we are now seeking solutions to it.  What do we find?  We find fruits (and some vegetables) that provide potential benefits in a protective manner that we are seeking.  They provide nutrients that have either been bred out of our current food or processed into oblivion or that never existed in the current food chain because, well, they are too inconvenient to grow.  Along comes, say, Acai.  Miracle Fruit!  Wondrous Food.  It is a fruit that we, as a civilized breed, overlooked and allowed to just continue along its own path.  The less civilized members of our breed continued to consume the fruit until one day someone from civilization stumbled upon this fact and PRESTO – here is a miracle fruit for all.  What the less civilized of our species knew was that this fruit has benefits and is “good.”  Our “discovery” is a discovery of something we have lost.  Modern technology allows for this Super Fruit to be made available to the masses of the world rather than where it is normally and natively grown.  The next step is t cultivate this Super Fruit.  Of course we will have to tweak it in some way or another in order to produce the mass quantities we need and PRESTO – we breed out all the “goodness” of the original fruit.  Once more we can produce lots of fruit but it is far less super.
The lessons learned here are – yes there are Superb to Super Fruits out there.  The adjectives uses are comparatives actually.  Compared to the food we normally consume – these fruits are Superb or Super.  They just haven’t been tampered with yet.  Looking at the older fruits and vegetables of the world will present us with more of these Superb entities.  Cultivating them without destroying by breeding the goodness of them is the challenge.  So, the focus is clear – find the fruits our very long gone ancestors consumed, if they still exist, understand what makes them so superior and then as they are identified and deliberately produced for mass consumption – avoid our more near term ancestors trap of eliminating the goodness from the bounty that Nature has offered us.

Nutracon's SuperFruit Webinar - "SuperFruits Or Just Superb Fruits?" registeration and information available here.