If berries could think the same way as we can, then the acai berry must be enjoying its new found success a great deal: people all over the world are now rushing to buy acai from all the places that they can find to buy acai. Where are these places? Where to buy acai? Acai is becoming almost omnipresent but the best place to buy acai remains on the Internet. There is a proliferation of websites offering acai for sale; some sites and some products are better than others, but here and now is not the place and time to discuss that aspect.

All those people that are now rushing to buy acai may be wondering to themselves how this has happened. It may have been just a few years ago that they — along with the majority of the population — did not know what acai was. Now everyone knows and everyone knows the good it can do for your body. Who do we have to thank for this surge in interest? Oprah Winfrey, of course!

Oprah Winfrey is a very powerful woman, and the featuring on her TV show of acai along with a short discussion on the benefits, was as good as telling her audience to go out and buy acai. So they did!

I am a mom of four and a wife of one, and I use acai preserves a lot in my home and in my cooking. Knowing that I am able to give my family acai really gives me a good feeling about life. We all deserve the best.

Acai is a wonder food that contains a lot of the goodness that your body needs to try and keep itself in good health. It contains amino acids, antioxidants, and essential omega fatty acids. Getting acai into your home and into you and your family’s system is easy now that distributors have started producing acai preserves.

I have heard people ask how they can use acai to make a tasty treat that everyone will love, and that will add some variety to the repertoire of the home cook. Fortunately with acai preserves that’s a fairly easy thing to do.

Spreading the acai preserves on toast is the simples solution, and this is a really tasty idea. Sometimes to add a little spice to the deserts I add acai preserves as a topping to ice cream. The kids love it because it tastes quite a lot like chocolate syrup — they think they’re getting chocolate but I know it’s healthy fruit!

Dr. Perricone must have been thanking his lucky stars when no other than Oprah Winfrey featured his book — The Perricone Promise — on her TV show. Not only would the millions of people watching the show be tempted to go out and buy it, but it would quickly bring it to the attention of media outlets and broadcasters across the world. This was payday for Dr. Perricone.

It was also payday for the many produces or acai products: manufacturers and distributors of acai berry supplements, preserves, purees and juices must have jumped for joy at the news of the success of Dr. Perricone’s book. Acai, and by association acai supplements and the rest of the products, was named by Dr. Perricone as the world’s number one super food. Quite an accolade, I am sure you agree, and definitely one that helped to catapult sales of acai berry supplements to a level we have never seen before.

The problem with acai — if it is really a problem — is that the fruit degrades worryingly quickly once it has been harvested. This means that it is very difficult to store and transport. Processing the berry into acai supplements is a benefit that first solves this particular ‘problem’.

The management team at Monavie must be having a really strong sense of deja-vu at the moment. Not only is their product failing, but they and their parent company Monarch Health Sciences are being investigated by the FDA for what can only be described as dubious business practice.

Monavie was founded in 2005 by MLM company Monarch Health Sciences. The company base is in Salt Lake City, Utah. Many of the management team are ex-members of other (failed) MLM enterprises, and some even with other distributors of acai juices. You would have thought that with all this experience, they would have got something right!

Not that it’s on the top of their list of priorities at the moment, but their product is inferior to almost everything else on the market. It is more expensive — tipping the scales at almost twice the price of the vastly superior Amazon Thunder acai juice — it contains much less acai than its competitors (in fact it contains very little acai at all), and, to top all, the brand is being marketed to customers as a cure for many things that it is a not a cure for. Nutritionists everywhere have warned that Monavie’s outrageous claims as to the potency of their acai juice simply cannot be proved.

If you’ve not heard of the acai berry then you’ve probably been living under a rock for quite some time. Acai is the latest – and undoubtedly the greatest – super food. The good news is that it is delicious and completely nutritious. The bad news is that it is virtually impossible to get acai berries from their home in Brazil. Why? Because the degrade very quickly indeed: the only people to actually eat them whole are the people that live in the area around which the berry is harvested.

To get the nutritious foodstuff to the US or Europe it must either be treated or its form changed. By far the best way to keep the acai fresh for consumption later is by turning it into acai juice. Acai juice has many advantages over other methods of preservation, but the main one is that it keeps it as natural as possible whilst allowing it to travel. One other reason why acai juice is a great invention is that it is simply convenient: if you want to take acai to the gym with you then you can. You can even drink acai juice in your car. Some of the other ways of getting acai to your home include the powdered version and even acai pills. You will be able to see immediately that neither can compare to the natural good taste of acai juice.

People don’t like getting old: that is a fact. Obviously anything that is going to offer a way to reduce the physical and mental effects of ageing will be immediately popular. So it is with the acai diet, which promises much and delivers even more.

Acai berries are grown in the Amazon basin in Brazil. The berries are described as a super food and are reported to have the best anti-inflammatory and antioxidant benefits of any food anywhere. An impressive claim, and one which has led to the booming sales of things like acai drinks and other acai-infused foods which can help you take up an acai diet.

Nicholas Perricone — author of the critically acclaimed book The Perricone Promise — has called acai “nature’s perfect energy fruit”. Oprah and the New York Times have, over the past few years, come to a similar conclusion. Many doctors encourage patients to try an acai diet as a way of becoming generally better and more fit. And of course if you can tell people that one of the side effects of feeling fitter and more healthy is a reduction in the appearance of the signs of again, then it suddenly becomes a lot easier to swallow.

If you haven’t already, give an acai diet a go.

What makes Acai so special?

While Acai may be small in size, it packs a nutritional punch unlike any other food in the world. While we get more into the specific benefits of Acai in our Acai health benefits article, here are a few highlights to wet your appetite:

* Dr. Perricone, in his bestseller – “The Perricone Promise” picks Acai fruit as the #1 Super Food in the world.

* In 2005, Oprah name Acai the #1 Super Food, saying “This little berry is one of the most nutritious and powerful foods in the world.”.

* “Rich in antioxidants and amino acids, a�a� is thought to be one of the most nutritional fruits of the Amazon basin.” New York Times, 8/4/2004

* Acai has 10 Times the antioxidant power of red grapes and twice that of blueberries

While other sites make claims about Acai curing every disease known to man, we would never make those claims. What is clear is that Acai has tremendous health properties and may be one of the best possible foods you can eat to stay healthy. In our article – Nutritional make up of Acai – we get into more specifics of what makes Acai so healthy.

A comparative analysis reported that açaí had intermediate antioxidant potency among a variety of frozen juice pulps tested. Antioxidant potency was: acerola > mango > strawberry > grapes > açaí > guava > mulberry > graviola > passion fruit > cupuaçu > pineapple.[5]

A powdered preparation of freeze-dried açaí fruit pulp and skin was shown to contain anthocyanins (3.19 mg/g), including cyanidin 3-glucoside and cyanidin 3-rutinoside,[2] yet the contribution of anthocyanins to overall antioxidant capacity of açaí is only about 10%.[6] The powdered preparation was also reported to contain twelve flavonoid-like compounds, including homoorientin, orientin, taxifolin deoxyhexose, isovitexin, scoparin, as well as proanthocyanidins (12.89 mg/g), and low levels of resveratrol (1.1 μg/g).[2]

In a study of different açaí varieties for their antioxidant capacity, a white species displayed no antioxidant activity against different oxygen radicals, whereas the purple variety most often used commercially was excellent against peroxyl radicals, good against peroxynitrite and poor against hydroxyl radicals.[6]

Freeze-dried açaí powder was found to have high antioxidant activity against superoxide (1614 units/g) and peroxyl radicals (1027 μmol TE/g) and milder activity for peroxynitrite and hydroxyl radicals.[7] The powder was reported to inhibit hydrogen peroxide-induced oxidation in neutrophils, and to have a slight stimulatory effect on nitric oxide production by lipopolysaccharide-stimulated macrophages in vitro.[7]

Extracts of açaí seeds were reported to have antioxidant capacity against peroxyl radicals, similar to the capacity of the pulp, with higher antioxidant capacity against peroxynitrite and hydroxyl radicals.[8]

The fruit, a small, round, black-purple drupe about 1 inch (25 mm) in diameter, similar in appearance and size to a grape but with less pulp, is produced in branched panicles of 700 to 900 fruits. Two crops of fruit are produced each year. The fruit has a single large seed about 0.25–0.40 inches (7–10 mm) in diameter. The exocarp of the ripe fruits is a deep purple color, or green, depending on the kind of açaí and its maturity. The mesocarp is pulpy and thin, with a consistent thickness of 1 mm or less. It surrounds the voluminous and hard endocarp which contains a seed with a diminutive embryo and abundant endosperm.[citation needed] The seed makes up about 80% of the fruit (Schauss, 2006c).

The berries are harvested as food. In a study of three traditional Caboclo populations in the Amazon region of Brazil, açaí palm was described as the most important plant species because the fruit makes up such a major component of diet (up to 42% of the total food intake by weight) and is economically valuable in the region (Murrieta et al., 1999).

The juice and pulp of açaí fruits (Euterpe oleracea) are frequently used in various juice blends, smoothies, sodas, and other beverages. In northern Brazil, açaí (or jussara, which is one of the fruit’s common folk names) is traditionally served in gourds called “cuias” with tapioca and, depending on the local preference, can be consumed either salty or sweet (sugar, rapadura and honey are known to be used in the mix). Açaí has become popular in southern Brazil where it is consumed cold as açaí na tigela (“açaí in the bowl”), mostly mixed with granola — a fad in which açai is considered an energizer. Açaí is also widely consumed in Brazil as an ice cream flavor or juice.

As the high fat content of açaí (Nutritional content, below) indicates it would deteriorate rapidly after harvest, its raw material is generally available outside the immediate growing region only as juice or fruit pulp that has been frozen or processed as a pulp powder or freeze-dried powder. Several companies now manufacture juices, health drinks, yoghurts, and sorbets made from açaí berries, often in combination with other fruits.