Saturday, January 16, 2010

What is the Acai Berry?


">What is the Acai Berry?

The acai berry is a small grape-sized berry that grows in the Amazon Rainforest of Brazil. Natives of the region have harvested this berry as part of their diet for hundreds of years.

The much desired acai fruit is only 10% of the actual berry. The other 90% is made up of the seed or pit. The acai berry is harvested by the thousands and put through a process that separates the pulp from the seed to produce a thick, edible puree.

America Discovers the Acai Berry
Although the acai berry is legendary in Brazil, only recently has its popularity spread to America. Doctors, scientists, nutritionists and countless media outlets rave about its many nutritional qualities and health benefits

This recent surge of interest in the acai berry has been aided by Bestselling author and anti-aging expert Dr. Nicholas Perricone who has touted the berry as the “Number one super food in the world” in his book “The Perricone Promise” and in appearances on TV shows such as Oprah.

Calling the acai berry “the number one super food in the world” might sound like a stretch, but this view is not unfounded. The little berry is packed with an amazing amount of free-radical fighting antioxidants and is considered to have the best overall nutritional value of any fruit on earth.

Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity (ORAC) is a method used by the USDA of measuring antioxidant capacities of different foods. As you can see below, other popular fruits don’t even come close to the antioxidant power of the acai berry.

Acai Power
All this talk about antioxidants and nutritional value, what does it mean exactly? In simple terms, the acai berry can help:

Support the immune system
Aid in weight loss
Improve digestion
Reduce pain and soreness
Promote healthy sleep
Increase energy & stamina
Increase libido
Fight cancer & disease
Lower blood pressure
Fight aging & inflammation
Protect against heart disease

Palate Pleaser
With all of this nutritional value and antioxidants, the acai berry must taste awful, right? Wrong. The acai berry has a flavor that is best described as a delicious blend of berries and chocolate. Perhaps that’s why the Wall Street Journal recently ran an article about how acai berry is replacing wheatgrass as the drink of choice at health bars all over the country.

Acai Berry Diet
Not only is acai berry replacing wheatgrass as the new health fad, it also seems to be the newest fad diet as well. Clever companies are realizing what a huge discovery acai berry is and capitalizing on it with heavily marketed diet supplements. While many of these weight loss claims are exaggerated, the acai berry has been scientifically proven to contain several key ingredients that aid in boosting the metabolism, suppressing appetite, and building muscle tone.

The Acai Inconvenience
The acai berry sounds too good to be true doesn’t it? That’s because, unfortunately, it kind of is. You see, unless you live in the middle of the Amazon Rainforest, you can’t just go down to the grocery store and buy a bucket of them. They are extremely perishable and spoil within a day of being picked from the tree.

Of course this is great news for large companies who can process the stuff, mix it with normal fruit juices, and sell it for a lots of money per bottle (We won’t name names). Other acai products are just out there to jump on the recent acai popularity bandwagon, and are made in such a way that they keep hardly any of the nutritional qualities of fresh acai.

Fortunately, there are ways to get your hands on this super food. Although we don’t sell any acai products ourselves (we simply research and study the acai berry), this site will inform you of all aspects, studies, and health benefits of the acai berry and show you what to look for in a quality acai product.

Acai Berry Samples (while supplies last)
People constantly ask us what acai supplement to buy. We’ve tried to keep products off this site, but, frankly, we’re sick of all the emails. So we decided to pull some strings and get our readers a risk-free sample of one of the best acai supplements out there. Supplies are limited and they'll go fast, so get yours ASAP. Read More...