The Brazilian people know a good thing when they see it. They use the acai berries, juice and pulp in many different dishes – from drinks and smoothies to their breakfast cereals and muesli bars. Brazilians also use acai as a flavoring for meat poultry and fish dishes. They top many of their dishes with the pasty, curd substance made from the fruit.
What they are really doing with all this acai additions is to get for themselves the amazing health benefits. Acai is a completely non-fattening source of energy and antioxidants. Antioxidants of course are the great anti-aging substance.
Only in the last few years have people in North America and the rest of the World become aware of how acai gives them a nutritional super boost. Some state of the art smoothie places may serve acai as one of the exotic flavorings available to you.
Not only are savvy health conscious consumers taking advantage of the benefits of acai, but scientists and the press are singing the praises of acai and have even found it capable of destroying cultured leukemia cells!
From the very real world of the Amazon rain forest to the virtual world of the Internet acai can be found in enormous symbolic quantities. It can be ordered and paid for by credit card in several forms, very different from the beautiful purplish berries of the ripe fruit. It comes as powder or capsule supplements or even frozen. From ancient plant magic to ultra modern technological nourishment in a pill acai today is like something out of Frank Herbert novel.
Acai is the most unbalanced part of your balanced healthy diet. It is unbalanced in the sense that there is nothing in it that isn’t good for you and it gives no adverse side effects whatsoever.
December 10th, 2008
There is something strange going on in the world of nutrition. While millions live at starvation levels there are pre-teen children in the first world that weigh more than 200 pounds and full adult super models and actresses that weigh half that. It is clear that some people need to be rescued – but is acai berry juice and other so called super foods really an answer?
This media label, which covers exotic fruits including the acai berry, the pomegranate, the goji berry, and, to a lesser extent, the kimchi, hypes up these nutritionally rich foods that help us feel healthier and even grow older at a gentler pace. So we have moved on from simply eating and drinking them to even including them in various skincare products.
But what makes a food ’super’? Well different varieties grow in different parts of the World such as the acai berry in the Amazon river basin of Brazil, or the goji or wolfberries, which are grown in China and Mongolia, but they all have high levels of 6 beneficial substances. These are the magic ingredients of the super foods and they are…
1) Amino acids: the body’s “building blocks” that make up proteins. They keep our skins smooth and strengthen it at the same time. Can you possibly get enough of these?
2) Antioxidants: naturally occurring ingredients including vitamins A, C and E that prey on ‘free radicals’. These unstable molecules are created by our metabolism but also occur in the environment (pollution, UV rays and sunlight etc.). They damage cells and are the equivalent of rusting metal. They lead to premature ageing and, at worst, cancer.
3) Flavonoids: another group of potent antioxidants valued for their anti-aging benefits.
4) Lipids: fats within the skin that keep it supple and are abundant in fruit.
5) Peptides: chains of amino acids which make up collagen in our skin.
6) Polyphenols: a potent group of antioxidants found in fruits and super fruits, valued for their protective benefits as well as their ability to “zap” free radicals.
Acai berries juice and pulp contains twice as many antioxidants as blueberries. ‘Super food’ hardly seems to do it justice. There are many new types of berry on the market at the moment and they come in all kinds of different products. Many people and celebrities are jumping on the super food bandwagon. You can’t find fresh anywhere but in Brazil. However you can get frozen pulp added to yogurts, ice cream and smoothies as well as the powdered form or in capsule supplements.
However, it pays to be skeptical of claims that these new superfoods are any better for us than homegrown fruit and vegetables. it seems their exoticism gives them a charisma and a price beyond their true value. Like all other foods, acai berries have long lasting nutritional benefits only as part of a balanced diet.
December 3rd, 2008
At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old duffer I want to say that I find all recipes suggestions on packets and in cook books and on those endless TV cooking programs simplistic and insulting. It is mildly interesting to know for instance how the Brazilian natives eat their acai berries but take a look at this smoothie recipe. They not only tell you the ingredients they tell you the exact quantities in both metric and imperial units.
7 Oz (200 grams Acai Juice)
½ Cup Soy Milk or Juice
Fruit (one banana, ½ half apple, or 1 cup of other fruit)
Directions:
Blend all ingredients together. Serve in a bowl and top with granola, sliced fruit or whipped cream.
Variants:
Add ½ cup yogurt or ½ cup ice. Also, frozen acai pulp may be used in place of the juice.
I showed this to my 17 year old daughter and she had two questions. Firstly what is acai juice and secondly what is an ‘oz’? Then I tried this recipe and ended up throwing half the concoction down the dispoal unit because it was too much for me alone. I loved the taste of the acai juice though. I certainly don’t need to be told that next come the directions and ‘oh by the way’ you can use this or that instead. And do they really think I’m going to lick it off the table top and my fingers?
What is it with people today that we need detailed instructions on how to feed ourselves? My mother was great cook and never looked at a recipe in her life. We don’t need to depend on others to find interesting ways to get the nourishment of the acai berry into us. We just need to follow our instincts and put together what appeals to us in the amounts that we need, The first Amazon tribesperson to eat the lovely purplish fruit has done all the dangerous work for us by not dropping dead with food poisoning. We have all got far too sophisticated and fancy when it comes food.
So here is the classic Brazilian way to get the tremendous nourishing effects of the amazing acai:Some acai roots blended with soy milk, yogurt, ice cream or juice and any other fruit you like but bananas are popular in Brazil.
November 25th, 2008
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