Kale

Before the news of kale hit the nation and every health loving, yoga doing person
started adding it to every meal, the largest buyer into the kale market was Pizza
Hut. Before its nutritional value was discovered (and marketed well!) kale was
only used as space filler for the salad bars. It didn’t even make it to the pizzas
themselves. Tough gig.

Wheat Grass

If you were hungry, would you every resort to a bite of your front lawn at all?
Nope? Well, think again. Every one of those wheat-grass shots you’ve downed
trying to make up for your boozy weekends is doing just that.

Spirulina

Spiralina has actually been used as food for a really long time, so it’s no surprise
that we’re adding this super-food into to every recipe and sm oothie we can get
our hands on. The truth is though, all spirilina is, is an ancient algae. Yum. The
Aztec race actually used to call it Tecuitlatl, which literally means ‘stone
excrement’. Double yum. It’s one of the first types of life on this planet, which may
suggest why it contains all the essential nutrients we still need today.

Teff

Before this small super-grain was recognised for its nutritional value, and used
to make super-flour for many different super-baked goods, it’s primary used was
horse and cattle feed. Promotion much.

Chia Seeds

The humble Chia seed has had to fight it’s way into todays spotlight. But its well
worth it with the amount of feature it’s getting in healthy foodie recipes. The
Aztecs relied heavily on Chia seeds as part of their diet and it was also an integral
part of their religious ceremonies as offerings to the gods. Its because of it’s
spiritual affiliations that when the culture was taken over by Spanish conquerors
that it was nearly completely wiped out.

But alas, Chia slowly but surely worked to get back into the mainstream lifestyle,
with momentous attempts like the rise of Chia Pets. But also less important
things like scientific research I guess.