I didn't "dismiss" these, of course these are useful techniques that help people. My point is to not associate non-scientific properties to having kale smoothies or avoiding carbs.
Losing weight is great. Many ways to do it. To say there are such things as "super nutrients" distorts the real process at work here, which is reducing over-eating.
As for a calorie being a calorie, you're misunderstanding my argument. I'm not saying all _foods_ will have the same impact on you biologically. Of course not. Human biology is extremely complex and people should eat a balanced diet.
But what happens too often is people confer special, almost mythical properties to foods or nutrients (like kale, or omega-3 fatty acids, or plant-only diets, or carbs, etc) when the most fundamental process is calories in vs calories out.
Yes, it's possible to lose weight and still be unhealthy (just eating 1500 kcal of McDonalds per day, e.g.), but most health benefits associated from dieting come from weight loss, not isolating particular properties or compounds or ingredients.
But not only that, I don't think it is as simples as "a calorie is a calorie". Different food are digested differently and trigger different responses for the body. To use an ad absurdum example, if I drink gasoline I don't get fat.