Health Sciences Institute-
July 2003
"Acai Nature's Perfect Food"
Discover the amazing health benefits of the fruit from the
Amazon’s "tree of life" the Acai - By Judy Douglas
If you get your health guidance from the mainstream
media, you’d think the healthiest way to live is to guzzle red wine
and drown everything in olive oil.
That’s basically what they’ve told us in recent
years. First, it was the “French paradox”--the fact that the French,
who generally eat lots of cheese, cream, and butter; drink lots of
wine; and smoke like chimneys, are healthier than Americans.
Scientists told us it was all in the wine—specifically, in the
anthocyanins—the antioxidant flavinoids that gives red grapes their
deep color.
Then it was the “Mediterranean diet,” the
traditional way of eating in the regions of Italy and Spain, where
olive oil is a staple. We learned that olive oil is a good source of
essential fatty acids that are processed right out of many
Americanized foods.
I’m not discounting the benefits of either of these
phyto-chemicals. In fact, in a minute I’ll explain exactly why both are
so important to good health. I just question the sources recommended
in the headlines. There’s got to be a better way to get these valuable
nutrients than guzzling wine and drowning in oil.
As it turns out, there is. I learned about it from
HSI panelist Jon Barron. He told me about a single SuperFood from the
Amazon, Acai, that, fresh from the tree, can provide over 30 times the
amount of anthocyanins as red wine and all the beneficial fatty acids
of olive oil in one delicious, all-natural package. And this is just
the beginning of Acai's health benefits. It’s virtually impossible to
over-do this food—which is certainly not the case with red wine or
olive oil.
With Acai you get the healing power of many phytonutrients in one
delicious package. There’s no disputing the health benefits of anthocyanins and essential
fatty acids. Both have proven to be powerful nutritional tools in the
quest for good health.
Research has shown that plant pigments like
anthocyanins are potent antioxidants.
The cardiovascular benefits are
the most well known; studies show that anthocyanins can help prevent
blood clots, improve blood circulation, relax blood vessels, and
prevent arthrosclerosis. But scientists have also uncovered a whole
host of other powerful effects from anthocyanins, including antiviral
and antiallergenic properties. Some research even suggests that
anthocyanins can prevent cancer, by blocking carcinogenesis on a
molecular level and encouraging tumor cell death.
Essential fatty acids have proven just as powerful.
Oleic acid, a monounsaturated omega-9 acid, and linoleic acid, a
polyunsaturated omega-6 acid, help lower LDL, and maintain healthy HDL
levels. They also increase the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins
like vitamins A, E, D, and K, which are essential to good health.
Research has even suggested that oleic acid may prevent against cancer
and hypertension.
Olive oil may be the best known sources of these
nutrients, but it is certainly not the only one. It’s the pigment in
red grapes that gives wine its anthocyanins—and that same pigment can
also be found in other red and purple fruits and vegetables, such as
blueberries, red cabbage, and purple sweet potatoes. Oleic acid is
also present in pecans and seed oils, and linoleic acid is found in
peanuts.
However, Acai is one food that delivers it all—plus
other healthy nutrients like fiber, phytosterols, and vitamins C and
E. For centuries, it’s been a staple for people in Brazil, yet
virtually unknown to anyone outside the region—until now.
Discover the health secret of generations of
Amazonian Indians.
Acai (pronounced ah-sigh-ee), and is the fruit of a palm tree that grows in the rainforests of the
Amazon—a tree Brazilians call "The Tree of Life." About 90 percent of
the small, round fruit is its hard, inedible pit—but that’s OK,
because it’s the outside skin that holds the treasure. That dark
purple skin of the Acai Berry is what contains the anthocyanins.
The natives puree the acai skins, creating a treat
that can be served warm as a sauce over fruit or grains or frozen like
a sorbet. They’ve been eating acai for centuries, passing down recipes
from generation to generation. (The native people have also passed
down the story of how acai was discovered.) Because acai fruit itself is
perishable, its popularity never spread beyond the region.
SuperFood fights heart disease, cancer, prostate
enlargement, and more.
Since then, the news about acai has been steadily spreading—and the
evidence of nutritional and health benefits just keep piling up.
Consider this: a 100-gram serving of acai contains only 90 calories,
just two grams of fat and no cholesterol. Plus, it delivers 3.5 grams
of dietary fiber, something we could all use more of in our diets.
Improved processing of the fresh fruit is making it possible to
preserve more of the fruit’s healthful attributes. Currently, the acai
puree provides more anthocyanins than red wine and acai has
antioxidant concentrations that well outweigh blueberries.
Subsequent research has shown that in addition to
the anthocyanins and essential fatty acids, acai also contains a
healthy dose of plant sterols, another class of phyto-chemicals that
have been shown to reduce cholesterol, protect the immune system, and
relieve prostate enlargement. In fact, it turns out acai is in the
same family as saw palmetto, a common herbal treatment for prostate
enlargement. And researchers at the Federal University of Rio de
Janeiro have discovered that acai extract can be used to fight
infection, like the parasitic infection schistosomosis which affects
10 million Brazilians each year and the common bacterial infection
staphylococcus aureus.
It seems there’s no end to the Acai miracle fruit’s
health benefits.
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