Acai - The Antioxidant Wonder Berry

There is a new juice in town, Acai juice. The Acai berry (commonly pronounced a-sigh-ee) is a tiny, round, and black-looking purple berry. It looks like a grape or a blueberry, but is smaller and darker. This fruit has a large seed and minimum amount of pulp. Acai has been used for many generations by the natives of Brazil.

Contemporary Brazilians are big fans of the small berry. Acai boasts 10 times the antioxidant benefits of grapes and twice that of blueberries. While somewhat new to the American mind, acai has been around for centuries and has helped many people with its healthful qualities.

What is Acai?

Acai is a distinct purple berry native to the Amazon rainforest. The acai fruit grows on large palm trees that can reach as high as 82 feet! The acai berry grows in bunches instead of alone. Typically palms have three to eight groups of berries.

What's so good about Acai?

Acai is quickly becoming known as a wonder food. Acai has incredible nutrient properties and is naturally plentiful in:

* Omega 3 fats (the good kind,) unlike the saturated fats in fast food)

* amino acids to build protein

* electrolytes (essential minerals for the body)

* antioxidants

* protein

* vitamins A, B1 and E

The people of the Amazon rainforest use acai in many types of foods - from drinks and shakes to breakfast cereals and bars. Brazilians even use acai to flavor meat and fish meals with a curd-like topping made from the pulp.

Not only does acai provide a delicious taste to complement food, it is known around the Amazon for wonderful health benefits. Not only does acai treat digestive issues, it is also known to help with skin irritation, insomnia and sexual dysfunction. It has strong anti-inflammatory properties and can thus soothe pain. It can help normalize blood lipids as well as blood glucose. It can even help normalize weight issues with its dose of healthy fats.

The fatty acid content in acai resembles that of olive oil, and is rich in monounsaturated oleic acid. Oleic acid is important for a number of reasons. It helps omega-3 fish oils penetrate the cell membrane; together they help make cell membranes more supple. By keeping the cell membrane supple, all hormones, neurotransmitter and insulin receptors function more efficiently. This is particularly important because high insulin levels create an inflammatory state, and we know, inflammation causes aging.

Only in recent years have people in North America discovered how acai makes them feel energetic and healthy. Take a trip to your favorite smoothie place and you might find acai as one of the add-in ingredients available to you. Even the media has taken a liking to the acai berry. In 2004, The Today Show on NBC featured the acai berry in a story. More currently, professionals at the University of Florida discovered the berry killed leukemia cells grown in a lab.

Where can I find Acai?
The Newest Wonder Food

Acai can be found in a variety of juices, vitamins and supplements including am isotonic form for fast and accurate absorbtion. In fact, this is rapidly becoming the best form of achieving maximal antioxidant protection. According to Dr. Richard Passwater, author of "The Antioxidants" and grandfather of the antioxidant movement in research:

"Combinations of antioxidants are like a balanced symphony working together. A symphony orchestra produces sounds so much more harmonious than merely having 20 drums playing. It is not the quantity, but the blend. The same is true with antioxidant nutrients: you get better results with moderate amounts of a full complement than you get with using very large amounts of just one nutrien. In general, the different reducing agents in the body "talk to one another" freely, and thus, it is probably important that all of our pools of reducing agents be maintained. For this reason, most of us in the field recommend that a person take a variety of antioxidants (a "cocktail"), not just a single substance."

Dr. Passwater concludes:

"The importance of synergism is that the antioxidant nutrients each contribute to the total protection. They work together in the antioxidant cycle and reach all body compartments-fat and water-based, blood and internal cell. They protect against all types of free radicals and reactive oxygen species. No one antioxidant can do all of this."

By adding acai to your diet plan, you are bound for better health!