In the fall of 1902, twelve healthy young men sat down together in a dining room set up in the basement of the former Bureau of Chemistry in Washington D.C. for the first of many meals they would share. The food they ate was whole and healthy, prepared with the finest ingredients, and calculated to meet the specific caloric needs of each individual. Oh, and it was laced with borax.

The twelve young men at the table were the first volunteer subjects of a study designed by the Bureau of Chemistry’s Chief Chemist Dr. Harvey Wiley to determine the human health effects of various common additive food preservatives.

Each young hero agreed that for the duration of his participation he would ingest nothing but the food provided him through the study, the only exception being water, which was carefully measured. He also agreed to regular medical examinations, and, of course, he agreed to clean his plate.

At the dawn of the 20th century, Americans were as concerned about the chemicals in their foods as we are in 2014. And with no real regulation, it was nearly as difficult to make good family food decisions as it is today amidst confusing regulation and an overwhelming amount of ever evolving and sometimes conflicting health information.

Then along came Dr. Wiley and his “Poison Squad” as they were soon called by the press. They operated under the motto, “Only the Brave dare eat the fare,” rotating through and testing at various times throughout the five year duration of the study: borax, benzoic acid, sulfur dioxide, formaldehyde, copper sulfate, salicylic acid, and saltpeter.

As soon as a man developed symptoms that inhibited the performance of his daily routine, he was given a minimum of forty days rest during which he ate nutritious food that contained none of the test chemical. But as Dr. Wiley later explained during a hearing before the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, the study was necessarily limited because unlike with animal testing, he couldn’t cut open his test subjects and examine their organs. Apparently, they wouldn’t agree to that.

Still, the study and the publicity that accompanied it, helped pave the way for the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and for the agency that would emerge officially in 1930 as the Food and Drug Administration. The act addressed fairness in labeling more than the elimination of food dangerous food preservatives, but four of Wiley’s test additives are long since gone from American foods, including borax, salicylic acid, formaldehyde, and copper sulfate.

Thanks to the heroic sacrifices of the poison squad, the food we eat is a little bit safer, which doesn’t seem to do much to ease our minds as we are still at war with all things perceived as unnatural in our foods. Regardless of what diet you subscribe to, be it the Mediterranean, Paleo, Flexitarian, or whatever, the one thing they all pretty much agree on is that you should eat as much real, single-ingredient, “whole” food as you can.

And even the most practical of nutritionists, who caution against adopting a diet so rigid that it’s not workable, agree that this is probably a pretty good idea. But as a mom who does the vast majority of the grocery shopping and as much of the cooking as I can’t get out of, I wanted to know, just what are those whole superfoods my family should be eating?

Turns out Prevention magazine has some suggestions. Actually, there are quite a few lists of the super-est foods of 2014, but I liked this particular list because most of the foods on it were included elsewhere, too, and there were several I’d never heard of before. You just can’t get any more super than that.

A few of my favorite are:

1. Avocado oil – just the oil, not the avocado because it was super a couple of years ago
2. Coffee – some years it’s good; some years it’s bad; this year the price is going up so it’s super
3. Shichimi togarashi – a Japanese spice that is apparently really hot and rich in antioxidants, but way more Hipster-friendly than say, blueberries
4. Salsify – a root vegetable that is low calorie and high in fiber because, you know, it’s a vegetable
5. Za’Atar – a Middle Eastern spice that decreases the instances of foodborne illnesses, kind of like cooking does
6. Teff – a gluten free grain whose biggest claim to healthfulness seems to be that you can’t digest it
7. Canary seed – yep, that’s right, bird seed is a gluten free grain option for people, too, so that in 2014, you have permission to finally eat the way you’ve always wanted to, like a bird. Super.

I don’t know what was on the list of super foods in 1906, but I guess I know what wasn’t. Don’t worry, though. No formal follow-up study was ever done on the participants of the poison squad, but anecdotally their health didn’t suffer in the long term. One participant, William O. Robinson of Falls Church, Virginia, passed away in 1979 at the age of 94. I think we have to conclude that his longevity stemmed from the fact that he was so well preserved.