By: Dr. Pam Avery

The Newest Wonder Food

There’s a new juice in town, Acai juice.  The Acai berry (commonly pronounced a-sigh-ee) is a rather small, round, and black-looking purple berry. It resembles 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 huge fans of the little berry.  Acai boasts 10 times the antioxidant benefits of grapes and twice that of blueberries.  While relatively new to the American consciousness, 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! Unlike cherries, which grow individually in trees, the acai berry grows in bunches, more like bananas. One average, each palm tree can yield anywhere from three to eight bunches.

What’s so great about Acai?

Acai is fast becoming known as a wonder food. Acai has tremendous nutrient properties and is naturally rich in:

* Omega 3 fats (the good kind, unlike the saturated fats found 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 entrees 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. Acai is known to be used for treatment of digestive problems, skin irritation, sexual dysfunction, and even insomnia. 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. Not only are consumers loving their acai, but researchers and the media are taking a strong interest in the power of this small berry. NBC’s Today did a feature story on acai in 2004.  More recently researchers at the University of Florida tested acai and found it destroyed leukemia cells grown in the lab!

Where can I find Acai?

Many forms of acai are sold mixed with other fruit juices, vitamins and supplements.  Acai is even available in an isotonic form for quick and maximal absorption.  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.”

Get some Acai today and make your life a little healthier!

Online health and wellness expert, Dr. Pamela Avery, publishes the widely acclaimed ‘Natural Solutions, Natural You’ weekly ezine with 1,000+ subscribers. If you’re ready to improve your health, make more money by helping others improve their health, or just have more fun and energy in your life, all naturally, then get your FREE tips now at http://www.the-natural-md.com.