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Is Acai Berry Beneficial To You or Is It Just Another Hyped-Up Super Fruit?

By Benjamin Waters


Acai berries are small dark purple berries that are as about as big as a small grape. The Acai Palm tree in Brazil bears this delicious fruit.

Acai berries have a tarty sweet chocolate taste to them. If raspberries and cranberries are to your liking, you will also enjoy acai berries.

The Acai Palm tree naturally thrives in the swamps and floodplains of Brazil. The soil there is moist, well-drained, and acidic. This is why it bears such good fruit.

Small purple flowers grow on this tree in clusters. When the flowers mature, green fruits come forth and form into bunches.

Before the natives can enjoy these delicious berries, they must wait 4-5 years before fruit is born from the Acai Palm. The acai berry has a diameter of one inch with one seed inside. When the berries become a purple dark hue, they are ripe for the pickings.

For centuries, the natives of the Amazon rain forests have been making these nutrient-rich berries an integral part in their diets. Not only do the natives of Brazil eat the acai berry but they also use them to help to heal different conditions of the skin.

If they are suffering from a fever, they use acai seeds and brew them to make tea. This helps to calm and soothe the fever. If someone is suffering from menstrual pain or diabetes, the acai root is boiled and consumed to treat these conditions.

The Powerful Punch of Antioxidants

The dark purple color that acai berries have come from naturally occurring compounds called anthocyanins. These same compounds also give other colorful plants their purple, red, and blue colors.

Anthocyanins are not only the coloring crayon for plants but they also function the same way as antioxidants do.

Vegetables and fruits are a rich source of antioxidants because they are plant-based foods. Antioxidants help to get rid of damaged cells that can cause you harm, such as aging prematurely and cancer-causing cells.

A testing method that is often used by the Department of Agriculture called ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) was originally formulated in the U.S. ORAC measures the absorbent capacity of oxygen radicals in foodstuffs.

It does this by evaluating the activity of antioxidants of ingredients in food; a measurement that returns a high reading, results in a favorable ORAC number.

Acai berries were tested along with other fruits and vegetables. At the end of the testing period, acai berries returned an extremly high ORAC value even higher than all of the other vegetables and fruits that were tested.

Blueberries and red wine pale miserably in comparison to acai berries. Acai berries contain 30x more anthocyanins than red wine and double the concentration of the antioxidants in blueberries.

Acai berries don't stop there. They have a high concentration of vitamins B1, B2, B3, C, and E. As I stated earlier, they are nutrient rich having proteins, fiber, phosphorous, calcium, and potassium. These nutrients are essential to maintain a healthy body.

Our bodies need vitamin C to help ward off bacterial infections. It also boost the immune system, helps to maintain the health of our heart and eyes; and it helps to prevent skin wrinkling. Cabbage, oranges, potatoes, and mangoes are a good source of vitamin C.

Acai berries fight against the aging process by producing new collagen proteins deep within the dermis layer of the skin, which lies underneath the epidermis, which is the top layer of your skin. Acai berries also have other potent nutrients that help to protect your skin from UV damage. The effects of UV light exposure on your skin can lead to skin wrinkling and premature aging.

Added Benefits

Plants naturally produce phytosterols; and since acai berries is a plant food, they too produce these compounds. Plants make phytosterols to help maintain cell wall structure.

Phytosterols in humans inhibit the intestines from the absorption of cholesterol. This is how acai berries help us to lose weight and raise our HDLs. Acai berries are also used by the cosmetics industry to provide better and healthier skin care products.

A make-up powder containing a high concentration of acai berry is being used in several treatments for the face to retain a more youthful and healthy appearance in women. Studying the acai berry and its health benefits has become a growing new field of study within the scientific community.

Women who have problems with skin wrinkling and acne have noticed younger and more beautiful skin while using acai powder. Moreover, more research still needs to be done to see what other hidden secrets the acai berry has to offer.




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