That the acai berries are nature’s most amazing fruits is a fact that no one denies. These berries have proved that there is no ailment that they cannot treat, no health benefit that they cannot provide and no body that they cannot improve in health. The berries have a vast wealth of natural goodness, which comes from its tumbling oeuvre of vitamin and mineral goodness. But recent researches have proved that there is yet another factor that is responsible for making the acai berries as potent for health as they are. These ingredients are the anthocyanins.

We are all quite well acquainted with anthocyanins though we might not know their name. Red fruits usually have anthocyanins in them, including red apples and grapes. In fact, anthocyanins are the pigments that give them their red color. If you notice, these foods are both considered to be very healthy foods. Who can deny that an apple a day keeps the doctor away?

However, there is more to this. Anthocyanins belong to a class of chemical compound known as antioxidants. They have the effect of antioxidants on the human body when they are consumed. Let us try to understand what this does for the body.

The human body is not as it seems from the outside. There are thousands of chemical processes going on in the body at every given instant. The secret of maintaining the body functioning normally is to allow these reactions to take place in a systematic manner at every living instant. But that definitely does not happen all the time. These reactions produce several byproducts, some of which are known as free radicals. Paradoxically, these free radicals have the potential to stop further reactions from taking place. Now, when that happens, the body loses its regularity of functioning and problems begin to occur. This is also the reason why the body becomes more infested with problems as age advances. Body processes become weak and free radicals have a free role to play in deteriorating the body’s health.

The anthocyanins have a great effect in this scenario. They can react with the free radicals and eliminate them from the body. This is definitely very beneficial to the body because in the absence of the free radicals, the body’s normal metabolic processes will be able to go on consistently. This keeps the body functioning well and various health problems – and even problems of aging – are averted.

Acai berries have a very high proportion of anthocyanins in them. The actual content is about 3.19 mg of anthocyanins per gram of the product. This is over 33 times the concentration of antioxidants present in another extremely rich anthocyanin product – red wine. Red wine is actually recommended by doctors for people who wish to have a healthy heart and a long life. Now, if the acai berries have several times more antioxidants than the red wine, the benefits are only multiplied by that amount. This has made acai berries virtually unshakable in the world of natural health foods today.

The little dark blue brown acai berry has been studied a lot in recent years and has been shown to have some of the most amazing health benefits that humankind has ever known. Never before has a health product come under so much scrutiny and research and actually proven itself to be meritorious in all the claims that have been made about it. The significant fact is that the berry shows to have more and more health cures even when so many are already discovered and scientifically and medically proven. Now, experts are going as far as saying that with the acai berry a person can actually stay healthier for the entire life, keeping diseases at bay.

This has naturally captured global attention. Keeping away from diseases is something not many health foods do effectively, even if they do it at all. However, acai berries have been proven to keep diseases such as diabetes mellitus, heart disease, osteoporosis, skin conditions, hypertension and even cancer, as recent researches prove. This is the longest list of health benefits ascribed to any one food, and that is what makes the acai berries truly special.

But why do the acai berries work in this manner? What makes them so beneficial from a health perspective? Scientists who have spent years researching on the berry and its benefits ascribe these benefits to the huge concentration of antioxidants that are present in the berries. Antioxidants work by eliminating the destructive free radicals that work at slowing down the metabolic processes. During our body processes, several free radicals are released, which are nothing but incomplete chemical molecules. Being incomplete, they tend to complete their structures by combining with the useful enzymes and hormones present in the body and hence hamper the effectiveness of body processes.

Acai berries act so effectively against disease protection because the poly phenolic antioxidants present in them play a role in removing these free radicals from the body. In the absence of the radicals, it becomes much easier for the various metabolic processes to function more effectively. This is what unlocks the secrets for the various benefits of health provided by the acai berry. A body that performs well will also stay healthier.

The reason for the added body immunity that acai berries provide is also because of the presence of the antioxidants. Our body has various internal mechanisms to fight against diseases, such as the action of white blood corpuscles in fighting against infections that threaten the body. However, in some people, the immune system is weak due to which such protective mechanisms do not take place. Acai berries, with their free radical removal action, see to it that these mechanisms are functioning effectively and that the body is protected at all times.

In fact, acai berries are also known to mitigate the symptoms of aging. People are able to have a more youthful skin because the acai thwart the negative processes that bring on conditions such as wrinkles, scars and other age-related problems. This in itself helps people to stay healthier for a longer time.

If made in the way it should, the freeze dried acai powder is the best form of the acai berries that exists. Acai berries are packaged in other forms too, such as juice and pulp, but because these are ‘wet’ forms of the berries, there is always scope for dilution. The benefit of a powdered form is that all the water content is effectively reduced and so what you get is a completely pure and nutritionally rich form of the acai berry.

It is important that you buy the acai powder from a reputed company though. It is important that is freeze dried too, because other forms of drying such as steam drying or sun drying will effectively remove the nutritional value of the berries from the powder. A lesser company that does not know its methods might be culpable of afflicting such a monstrosity on the acai. At the same time, you must know that there are some unscrupulous acai packagers who actually add filers like corn, rice and other products to add to the bulk of the acai powder. Be careful of who you buy your acai berry powder from; make sure that the company knows what it is selling and has a good track record.

Now, having said all that, we are in a position to understand why the freeze dried powder form of the acai berry is the best. The fact that it is the most concentrated form devoid of all water content is already understood, but there are other advantages also.

The powder form can be easily stored. Juices and pulps are inconvenient to store and they need to be consumed soon because even with the preservatives added in them, there is a chance that they might degrade in their nutritional content. The same is not true about the freeze dried acai powder, because the water content has been completely removed from this form. If you can think about the longevity of tea powder on your shelf, you will get a good idea of the longevity of acai powder too. You can retain it for a long time without worrying whether or not it will lose its goodness.

Speaking of preservatives, that brings us to the other problem with the pulp and juice forms. These forms need a lot of preservatives, and not all packagers will take due care to use only natural preservatives. You might be saddled with a product that says acai on the label but has a high concentration of dangerous synthetic preservatives inside it. With freeze dried powders of acai, this possibility is highly reduced mainly because the powder form does not require as many preservatives to keep fresh.

It is better to consume too. With juice and pulp you will occasionally be hunting for good recipes. But with the acai powder, this problem does not exist, because you can have it directly. Since a teaspoonful of acai powder will pack as much punch as half a cup of pulp can, it is more convenient to have it in the powder form than any other.