Legitimate scientific questions can be asked about specific foods—their nutrient content or digestibility, for example—but most such issues were addressed ages ago. Foods are not drugs. To ask whether one single food has special health benefits defies common sense. We do not eat just one food. We eat many different foods in combinations that differ from day to day; varying our food intake takes care of nutrient needs. But when marketing imperatives are at work, sellers want research to claim that their products are “superfoods,” a nutritionally meaningless term. “Superfoods” is an advertising concept.

Read: A credibility crisis in food science

But what is wrong with promoting the benefits of healthful foods? Wouldn’t we be better off eating more of them? Yes, we would, but many industry-funded studies are misleading, which is why the FDA requires so many qualifications in the claims it allows. This kind of research is designed to produce results implying that people who eat this one food will be healthier and can forget about everything else in their diets. Research aimed at marketing raises questions about biases in design and interpretation, may create reputational risks for investigators, and reflects poorly on the integrity of nutrition science. It also raises questions about the role of government agencies in promoting single-food research and about their failure to do a better job of regulating marketers’ claims about health benefits based on that research. To illustrate why such concerns matter, consider some of the marketing issues related to a well-known healthy food: blueberries.

The trade association Wild Blueberries of North America wants you to understand that frozen, fresh Wild Blueberries (always capitalized) are better for you than unfrozen, fresh supermarket highbush berries: “Jam-packed with a variety of natural phytochemicals such as anthocyanin, Wild Blueberries have twice the antioxidant capacity per serving of regular blueberries. A growing body of research is establishing Wild Blueberries as a potential ally to protect against diseases such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes and Alzheimer’s.” This is an impressive range of health benefits for a tiny fruit consumed in small amounts, but selling them as an antioxidant powerhouse has done wonders for the Maine wild-blueberry industry.

For years, I have had a potted highbush-blueberry plant on my 12th-floor Manhattan terrace, satisfyingly productive in years when I can manage to fend off the hordes of voracious finches. Unlike the easy-to-get-at highbush varieties, the wild ones grow close to the ground on sandy soils left behind by receding glaciers and are more difficult to harvest. In Maine, these blueberries are an important agricultural commodity. Since 1945, Maine blueberry growers have supported research—then and now focused on production practices—at the state’s university. As techniques improved, blueberry growers produced more berries. These needed to be sold.