The Tastemakers (15 page)

Today, the big driver in health trends is single ingredients. These so-called superfoods have an advantage over more complicated dietary regimens, which prescribe a balance of certain foods at the expense of others. Superfood trends come with a simple message: This one thing is so good for you that you basically need to eat as much of it as possible. The term itself is fairly recent, popularized in 1998 by the nutrition writer Aaron Moss, who wrote, “Humans have many options when it comes to fueling their bodies, but the benefits of some options are so nutritious that they might be labeled as superfoods.” The term, which is no more than a brilliant spark of marketing speak, quickly spread through the food world, as various diet practitioners, nutritionists, and food companies used it to sell their products and services. In 2004 Dr. Steven Pratt published his book
SuperFoods Rx: Fourteen Foods That Will Change
Your Life
, furthering the definition by claiming that a superfood had three qualifications: (1) it is readily available to the public, (2) it contains nutrients that enhance longevity, and (3) its health benefits are backed by scientific studies. Salmon, broccoli, spinach, berries, and green tea were among his favorites because “they contain high concentrations of crucial nutrients, as well as the fact that many of them are low in calories.” Pratt's website,
SuperFoodsRx.com
, claims that “foods containing these nutrients have been proven to help prevent and, in some cases, reverse the well-known effects of aging, including cardiovascular disease, Type II Diabetes, hypertension and certain cancers.” The nutrients these foods contain have become household names in their own right: flavonoids, Omega-3 fatty acids, polyphenols, and, of course, antioxidants, which have been held up—by those trying to sell them to you—as the best defense against cancer.

Even with so many conflicting health trends already around, we never seem to lose our appetites for new ones. Chia seeds are the latest and greatest “superfood.” The plant
Salvia hispanica L
. is an herb, related to mint, which was originally found in central and southern Mexico and Guatemala and later cultivated in other areas of Central America. For thousands of years it was central to the Aztec and Mayan diet as a staple food, in which the small black seeds were ground for flour, pressed for their oil, or simply mixed with water and drunk straight. Aztec rulers received chia seeds in tribute from their subjects, and the seeds were incorporated into religious ceremonies. After the Spanish conquest of Latin America, chia's use declined in all but a few areas, as the Christian conquistadores banned it for use in religious ceremonies, and the imported European flours, grains, and foods overtook it in the Latin American diet. In Mexico people still made
chia frescas
(a sugary limeade with chia seeds in it), but for the most part chia was forgotten as a food, cultivated in only a handful of farms. Chia was so undervalued, in fact, that it was used as a decoration by artisans in Oaxaca, Mexico, where the moistened seeds were spread onto terra cotta figures and molds. As they sprouted, a garden of green hair seemed to grow from the figures. In 1977 Joe Pedott, an American marketing
and advertising maven, came across the chia figures at a trade show and acquired the rights, rebranding them as Chia Pets in 1982 and adding the ubiquitous “ch-ch-ch-chia” television jingle that assured their fame. His company, Joseph Enterprises (which also produced the Clapper), built a multimillion-dollar business off the verdant backs of Chia Pets, which have included molds in the guise of Elmer Fudd, Hello Kitty, and two different versions of President Barack Obama as well as his electoral rival Mitt Romney. No one ever thought to eat their Chia Pet, however.

The father of the chia diet trend is Dr. Wayne Coates, a professor of agricultural engineering at the University of Arizona. A marathon runner with an interest in health foods, Coates's research had focused on cultivating new crops from various sources over the years, including many from Latin America, such as quinoa, amaranth, and various strains of lettuce. In 1991 he was working in partnership with other academics in the northwestern provinces of Argentina, trying to introduce to poor farmers there more lucrative crops beyond the traditional staples of corn and beans. A few small farms in Guatemala and Mexico were still cultivating chia seeds, but someone on the team suggested they try them in Argentina, so in 1992 chia was planted as part of the program on thirty-five acres of land in the province of Catamarca.

“The initial work we did was feeding it to chickens to make Omega-3-enriched, healthier eggs,” recalled Coates. “That's how it started.” Omega-3 fatty acids were becoming a big driver of health trends at the time, and so Coates and his team focused their research on the effects of feeding chia to chickens, pigs, and dairy cows as well as laboratory rats. After a few years they began looking at chia as something humans should be consuming directly. Coates began working with others to identify additional health benefits, isolating chia's antioxidant, fiber, and protein attributes in various studies he and his Argentine partner in the project, agronomist Ricardo Ayerza Jr., conducted. The Omega-3 acid levels in chia were particularly high, and the more Coates and Ayerza studied the seed, the more they realized what a potential gold mine they had unearthed. Chia seed stored easily, and unlike flax, it never went rancid once it
was milled, which meant it wasn't perishable. It had no discernible taste and could hold up to heat of various types, so it could conceivably work in everything from baked goods and meat dishes to heavily processed food products. In 2005 Coates and Ayerza published
Chia: Rediscovering a Forgotten Crop of the Aztecs
, a book that summarized their research and passion about chia and strongly evangelized for its consumption. It coincided with Coates's efforts to sell chia seeds in the North American market. He received approval for its sale by the Food and Drug Administration, who certified it was safe to eat, and Coates sold the seeds online and to health food stores around North America.

Around the same time a Toronto health food entrepreneur and self-confessed jack-of-all-trades named Larry Brown was launching his own chia seed business. Brown had been selling various whole grain breads to Canadian health food stores since the mid-1980s and had occasionally heard about chia seeds. “I remember reading a book in a health food store called
All About Chia
in 1972,” recalled Brown, sitting at a Starbucks near his house one day. “But you could barely find it. It was sometimes in health food stores in little plastic bags with twist ties on it and a handwritten paper label.” Brown's sister Trudy searched online for someone who could procure chia seeds, and they came across a family of farmers in Argentina who were using it as chicken feed (and likely got their start from Dr. Coates's project). Brown showed some of Coates's preliminary research to a friend who owned a health food store. “This will change the world,” Brown recalled the friend saying. “But you need to do research.”

Brown took a small bag of chia seeds to Dr. Vladimir Vuksan, a highly respected professor of nutrition at the University of Toronto, and literally knocked on his office door, asking whether the professor would study the seed. “You don't just walk in off the street,” Vuksan shot back. “I don't even know you.” But Brown, a persistent salesman, convinced Vuksan to keep the seeds and take a look if he was interested—no obligations or questions asked. Five days later Vuksan called Brown back and told him it was the most nutritious food he'd ever seen. He began conducting his own studies, which showed that
salba seeds (he and Brown didn't use the name chia because of associations with the Chia Pet) were beneficial in reducing blood glucose, blood pressure, body inflammation, and fibrinolysis, especially in patients with type 2 diabetes. Vuksan and Brown dug into the different strains of chia seeds out there, including white chia, red chia, and black chia, as well as the various attributes of seeds grown in different regions. Eventually they identified the two strains they felt were the most consistently nutritious, and in 2002 they filed provisional patents for
Salba Hispanica L
. (basically chia seeds) as a medical treatment. Brown set up the Salba company and released the first branded strain of chia seeds to the market in the early 2000s. As sales slowly grew in the health food community, Brown reached out to a Denver-based company, operated by a man named Rally Ralston, that made tortilla chips and other products with whole grains. Ralston and his brother had been looking into chia seeds since 1999 and soon began working with Brown to develop chia-fortified chips, salsas, pretzels, and snack foods under the Salba brand.

Other companies started popping up, particularly in Toronto, which became a sort of chia mecca in the trend's early years. Press followed as well. In 2005 the
Saturday Evening Post
—which, almost two hundred years old, now targets a geriatric audience—wrote about chia seeds as a returning “supergrain,” quoting Dr. Vuksan and his research extensively. Margaret Conover, a Long Island botanist and science educator turned chia blogger, was shocked when her eighty-year-old mother baked salba muffins for her family reunion after reading the article. “ ‘Yeah, they're these miracle seeds I read about in
Saturday Evening Post
.' ” Conover recalled her mother saying. “ ‘They do blah blah blah … and I paid thirty-two dollars a pound.' My mother doesn't pay thirty-two dollars a pound for anything!” Conover said. “I was just flabbergasted. She was the first person I'd ever heard of outside the chia world who bought it, and she bought it through mail order.” A year later Dr. Andrew Weil wrote about chia seeds on his website, which is one of the most read wellness and nutrition publications in the world.

As word spread, around 2007 and 2008, more chia suppliers began entering the market, and more chia products (drinks, bars,
supplements) began appearing on health food shelves. Because chia wasn't a widely traded commodity, the price and quality fluctuated unpredictably. It was the Wild West: a constant influx of new players, each staking their claim to some previously unnoticed corner of the market, with no one really able to guarantee anything. Brown and Ralston got into a disagreement over the direction of Salba's business and split ways, though not before heading to court with each other and the Argentinean suppliers of the seeds over who could use the trademarked name of Salba (essentially, Ralston won the rights). Wayne Coates worked with a Florida company called Lifemax to develop the Mila-branded mix of chia seeds, which Lifemax then distributed through a sort of Amway-style direct marketing model, in which users sold bags of seeds to their friends and recouped a share of the profits. Mila is priced several times higher than other chia products, and many in the chia community (yes, there is a chia community) have complained that it is nothing but a pyramid scheme. On her
chiativity.org
blog Conover reported that Lifemax was rumored to have published a study written by an “expert” serving time in federal prison and that Coates claimed that the Lifemax people owed him money, and this is why he left the company.

Then, in 2009, author Christopher McDougall released the book
Born to Run
about the reclusive Tarahumara Indian tribe in Mexico's Copper Canyons who are reputed to be the world's greatest long-distance runners. They run in thin sandals, avoiding the injuries that plague most joggers, and they eat chia. Though McDougall only mentioned chia seeds a few times in the book, he did so with the zeal of a missionary, spreading a powerful gospel to fresh converts. “If you had to pick just one desert-island food, you couldn't do much better than chia,” McDougall wrote, “at least if you were interested in building muscle, lowering cholesterol, and reducing your risk of heart disease; after a few months on the chia diet, you could probably swim home.”
Born to Run
quickly became a global sensation, selling millions of copies and igniting a fever in the jogging community. I remember being on a book tour in Buffalo, New York, and my chaperone was an enthusiastic jogger who
couldn't stop talking about the book. He had tossed out his running shoes and had begun running in minimally supportive “barefoot” sandals (an entire industry that sprung up in the book's wake), and as I sat eating chicken wings at the Anchor Bar, he stirred a spoonful of chia seeds he kept in a plastic baggie into a glass of water and told me how I really should have written a book about running instead. Runners' message boards and websites filled up with enthusiastic discussions on chia seeds, and their use began growing in other athletic communities, which are early adopters of many health trends.

After
Born to Run
the market burst open with chia entrepreneurs. Janie Hoffman, an upbeat avocado and pineapple farmer from Southern California, heard about chia seeds from her personal trainer, who was using them instead of flax seeds because of their longer shelf life. She bottled chia fresca drinks (basically chia lemonade) and brought them to her yoga students, who couldn't get enough of them. In 2010 Hoffman launched the Mamma Chia line of beverages, promoting them with the above quote from
Born to Run
posted prominently on her website. Mamma Chia's first customer was all the Whole Foods stores in the southern Pacific region of the United States, where they sold so well that within a month they were distributed nationally throughout the chain—a major coup for any company, let alone a startup. Mamma Chia drinks are now available in thousands of stores around North America, including mainstream grocery retailers like Wegmans, Kroeger, and Safeway. A year after Mamma Chia's launch, Dan Gluck and Nick Morris, two young hedge fund financiers in New York with a passion for intense workouts, got into the business with Health Warrior, which marketed whole chia seeds and chia energy bars, initially to other type-A athletes who worked in finance. They sponsored 5 a.m. power workouts in Central Park, where they served chia drinks, granola with chia, and their Health Warrior bars. Wall Street traders got hooked on it and brought Health Warrior products to their offices, where they began leaning on chia as an energy boost during frantic days on the market—popping a handful of seeds or a Health Warrior bar to stay alert during marathon sessions of shorting derivatives like their predecessors had once done
with coffee, Red Bull, and cocaine. Even the folks behind Chia Pet got into the act, launching a line of ch-ch-ch-chia Omega-3 seeds with their particular brand of low-budget, catchy TV commercials.