One second everyone’s eating nothing but Açaí berries, the next its Quinoa, and now Chia seeds. The trend for exotic, novel/ancient foods (marketed as “superfoods” but whose nutritional claims remain largely inconclusive) goes on and on.

Supposedly noted by endurance athletes (long distance runners in particular) for having high energy and anti-cramp characteristics, Chia seeds have been a popular health food in California for a handful of years now but yet to make a real impact in Europe. Native to central and southern Mexico and Guatemala, Australia is in fact now one of the largest global producers of this mint family flowering plant.

Known to be passionate about nutrition, Kelly Slater just released this advert for an Australian producer, the Chia Company. What you see Kelly eating in the video is a Chia Pod, containing “sun ripened Chia seeds, coconut milk and real fruit” (as opposed to fake fruit?).

While little of those ingredients can probably be bad for you, Kelly paradoxically appears to be promoting the unsavoury health food marketing trend for superfoods despite encouraging people to take an interest in what they eat.

Call us sceptics but it’s also worth bearing in mind that if you wanted to market your produce as a unfounded “health food” then using athletes to do so seems like a pretty obvious and easy place to start.

So anyway before you run down to your nearest health food store in the hope of one day winning 11 world titles here’s a clear, balanced view on the nutritional claims of Chia seeds.