Blackcurrants

If I want a superfood I’ll have a pepperoni pizza, but apparently there are alternatives out there, according to Superfoods: The Real Story (C4, 8.30pm, 6 July).

Sweet potato, for example, which has “hit the big time”. And as much as I love a good old Maris Piper, those bright orange babies are flush with beta carotene, which turns into vitamin A when we eat sweet potato fries. And if we swap one portion of regular chips for sweet potato versions we get double the vitamin C and 2,000 times as much vitamin A.

Berries are also brilliant for us, especially blackcurrants. So good they can even make us better at sport. Scientists proved that 80% of cyclists showed a “significantly improved” performance after eating lots of blackcurrants. One shaved eight seconds off her previous best. And blackcurrants are quite nice, so they have to be a better option for athletes than injecting themselves with drugs, getting caught and banned for life.

Less delicious-sounding is charcoal. A pint of charcoal juice costs over £8, which sounds every bit as ridiculous as drinking charcoal, but Gwyneth Paltrow swears by it, so there you go.

Likeable presenter Kate Quilton disagreed, and claimed charcoal is not a great superfood, although she did prove it can work miracles. Catch a paracetamol overdose in time and you stand a good chance of saving the poor soul if you make them drink charcoal juice because it flushes the toxins out of the body. Even if being forced to drink it probably makes them wish you hadn’t bothered.