If you are anything like me, then you get pretty tired of hearing the tons of outrageous promises made by every new health product to hit the market: “Grow muscle in your sleep!”, “Tone and sculpt abs in only two weeks!”, “Take this pill and regrow hair!”. No matter what you are doing, whether it be reading a magazine, watching TV, or simply driving to your nearest bookstore, we are inundated by ad campaigns touting false claims and guarantees that could never be delivered on. But every so often, one of these products proves to be the real deal. Acai is one such product, and because of its ability to deliver the goods, word of its health benefits are now sweeping the nation. Lets take an unbiased look at what acai promises compared to what acai can actually deliver:

What acai promises:

· Antioxidants for a strengthened cardiovascular system

· Fiber for aiding natural, comfortable digestion

· Lipids for the production of energy

· Amino acids for muscle regeneration

· Essential fatty acids to fight negative effects of aging

· Vitamins, nutrients and minerals to replenish the body’s storehouse

· All natural alternative to manmade health supplements

· Tastes great and comes in many forms

What acai actually delivers:

· Antioxidants for a strengthened cardiovascular system

· Fiber for aiding natural, comfortable digestion

· Lipids for the production of energy

· Amino acids for muscle regeneration

· Essential fatty acids to fight negative effects of aging

· Vitamins, nutrients and minerals to replenish the body’s storehouse

· All natural alternative to manmade health supplements

· Tastes great and comes in many forms

That’s right: what acai guarantees it actually provides. But don’t take my word for it, here’s what the specialists are saying:

Dr. Mehmet Oz: “[Acai] has twice the antioxidant content as a blueberry, so it’s a wonderful alternative….”

Dr. Nicholas Perricone: “Hidden within its royal purple pigment is the magic that makes it nature’s perfect energy fruit. Acaí is packed full of antioxidants, amino acids and essential fatty acids.”

Stephen Alcott of University of Florida: “Acai berries are already considered one of the richest fruit sources of antioxidants. This study was an important step toward learning what people may gain from using beverages, dietary supplements or other products made with the berries.”

Don’t waste your time on health products that are all bark and no bite, instead take advantage of pure, all natural acai and begin feeling the difference today!

You’ve probably already heard about acai and the many promises that have been made about what this superfruit can do for your health. Even though you may find it somewhat difficult to buy into all of the hype, it’s important to realize that many of the benefits stated are indeed accurate. In fact, many renowned health specialists have given acai their official stamp of approval; for example, take Oprah’s own Dr. Perricone: “[S]tudies have shown that this little berry is one of the most nutritious and powerful foods in the world….Acaí is packed full of antioxidants, amino acids and essential fatty acids.” But exactly what does this mean for you?

Much of acai’s nutrients and minerals come from the skin’s deep purple pigment, including antioxidants (ten times more than red grapes), amino acids, essential fatty acids (omega 3, 6, and 9), and fiber. Within the fruit’s pulp can be found a long list of vitamins and nutrients, including iron, calcium, and vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, C, and E.

There is catch though: the nutritional value of acai is largely based on how it is treated during its journey from palm tree to your kitchen. In other words, there are many ways that the berries can be preserved and prepared for consumption, but only a few specific ways that successfully retain most of the fruit’s goodness. Many products currently on the market may promise big results, but they simply cannot perform because what they offer retains very little of the things that make acai so nutritional. So how should acai be prepared?

The processing makes all the difference in the final quality of the product, and in order for consumers to be able to choose the best acai product, they must be knowledgeable on certain aspects of how the fruit is prepared.

• Frozen acai berry pulp retains much of the raw fruit’s goodness.
• Freeze-dried acai berry powder retains much of the raw fruit’s goodness.
• Everything else just doesn’t cut it.

Acai is a very temperamental fruit in its raw state, and unless it is properly prepared much of its rich nutritional content is lost. Thus, when searching for the right acai product for your own needs, be sure you know what you are looking for. When you do find a quality acai supplement, though, it will make all the difference in your health and wellness. Take advantage of acai today, and begin feeling better than ever before!

Acai has made the news yet again! Reporter Ashley McMillan has done a great report in vitamins and supplements in her report. She discusses these topics with Dr. Thompson and report that products like our acai berry can take some time for the benefits to be felt or noticed. In some cases up to 4 to 6 weeks.

“Most people aren’t going to get benefits right off the bat. Most things have to build up in your system, ususally that can take up to a week and sometimes up to a month. Certain medications up to 4-6 (weeks).”

…

“Both (Donna) Link and Thompson say it’s important to take the vitamin or supplement for at least 30 days.”

For more information, or to see the video report, head over to the KXMC website.

This time Mona Vie juice is being shown on Fox News. Watch the video

Ringing in the New Year with New Year’s resolutions has always been popular, and the most popular resolution among women in the United States is that they’ll finally shed those extra pounds. Well, now you can actually honor that resolution you made by adding the acai berry to your diet. The acai berry is a small round berry which must be produced as pulp and juice in order to be shipped outside of Brazil because of its fast deterioration. Many people describe the acai berry as a cross between a raspberry and a chocolate bar. So what’s the big deal about a berry grown in Brazil and how can it help you lose weight? The acai berry is extremely high in antioxidants, amino acids, and essential fatty acids. It can help you lose weight because the Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids it contains help to increase your metabolism, thereby causing you to burn more calories. The fiber fills you up and it takes you longer to digest your food, so you’ll find that you’re not as hungry as often as you were before adding the berry to your diet. The acai berry has been around for ages in Brazil and has been consumed by the native South Americans as a regular part of their diet for well over a century.

Because the berries are extremely perishable, preservation techniques have just now made them available outside of the immediate area. This is good news for you, since you can now find acai products in your local supermarket in the forums of acai juices, pulps, powders, extracts, and supplements, for those who find they don’t like the taste of the juice or the pulp. Just as with any good food, the real challenge is finding a way to incorporate the new food into your diet without spending an arm and a leg to do so. If you can get your hands on some acai juice, here is a great recipe which you can make on a daily basis. Consuming this smoothie everyday at least once will have a positive impact on your quest for weight loss and you just might find that you get addicted to the wonderful taste!

Acai Fruit Smoothie:
1/2 cup acai juice
1/2 cup of yogurt
Mix in a blender with handful of your favorite fresh fruit and enjoy.

You can also blend acai pulp with applesauce, green tea, or sparkling water for a great treat when you’re on the go and don’t have access to a blender. The amount you should use depends on the powder or extract you decide on, as all acai products aren’t made the same. There have been no confirmed side effects from the acai berry, so while its not unusual for someone to be allergic to something, there are no long-term side effects so you’re safe to eat acai and find your way into those skinner jeans in 2010!

photo credit: Jeff Karpala

There are literally tons of different diets and dieting products available on the market which all claim to be a quick way to lose weight. Some of these diets can work wonders for you, but the way in which they help you lose weight can be unnatural, unhealthy, or even worse, it simply doesn’t work as a reliable weight loss method. That’s one of the reasons people turn to the acai berry for their dieting needs. The acai berry is an all-natural fruit which grows on the acai palm in Central and South America. The acai berry has been harvested by the native peoples of the land for centuries. However, the berry has only recently made an explosion onto the global market after spas and health bars in Rio De Janiero began serving the drink as a supplement for weight loss.

The reason the acai berry has become so popular in recent times is the extreme amount of benefits you can gain from its consumption. In fact, weight loss is just one of the many benefits the acai berry offers. It’s loaded with antioxidants with a huge ORAC value, which is a value the FDA assigns foods with antioxidants to determine their worth to the body. Antioxidants are extremely important to the body for the number of functions they help regulate and maintain. In fact, recent studies have shown that when the acai berry is taken correctly as a dietary supplement, it can promote weight loss, increase energy, raise your metabolism, as well as being a cornerstone to helping science find the cure for cancer.

There are some things you should be aware of before you decide on an acai berry supplement for your daily diet. You should look and see how the berry was preserved, if the product states. Freeze dried berries are always more beneficial than berries which are not. The product should state how the berry was preserved, so you know you’re getting the best for your money. In addition to supplements, the acai berry often comes in many forms. You’ll find the fruit plain in regions closer to its growing location, but further out around the globe, you can get it in yogurt, juices, and even freeze dried for including it in your own recipes. Many people enjoy the taste of acai berry, describing it as a chocolate raspberry. If you do try acai and decide you don’t like the taste, its always available in supplement form. So if you’re looking to lose weight in a healthy and natural way, don’t discount the acai berry as a great supplement, especially when coupled with a regular regimen of exercise and eating properly.

photo credit: Lanci Daniele

It is quite well known that the acai berries are extremely rich in health benefits, especially weight loss and anti aging, for which it is renowned all over the world, but very few people know that these berries are quite effective for those who are looking for bodybuilding benefits too. Of course, acai berries cannot be relied on completely for bodybuilding – there’s too much needed to achieve that – but they can definitely act as healthy supplements to accelerate the process. More research is still going on into this relation of acai berries and their bodybuilding benefits, but the studies done so far have been highly encouraging. Let us look at this little-talked about relationship in closer detail.

The core reason why acai berries are good for bodybuilding is the presence of the high amounts of amino acids in it. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. In fact, if you look at a protein structure in detail, it is nothing but several amino acid molecules (same or different) connected end to end with a kind of linkage known as the peptide linkage. Hence, when acai berries are consumed, the body takes in the different amino acids that it consists, which are at least nineteen in number. That means, the body gets a boost in the building blocks that it requires for the manufacture of proteins.

Bodybuilders must definitely take acai berries seriously because they need to have a great deal of proteins in their bodies if they need to develop those rippling muscles. In this regard, there are very little foods that come close to the effectiveness of the acai berries. These berries contain up to 7.59% of pure amino acids when they are made in the pulp form (this is the form that the acai berries are usually marketed in). If you think about it from a quantitative point of view, it comes to approximately 8 grams of pure proteins in an acai pulp product weighing 100 grams.

It is now established that the acai berries have direct benefits in helping people who are looking at bodybuilding benefits. However, there are several indirect methods in which they work too. One of these is the tendency of the berries to remove the harmful LDL cholesterol from the blood by introducing healthy HDL cholesterol. There are high antioxidant levels present in the berries, which is again a big advantage because the antioxidants can improve the efficiency of the metabolic processes that take place in the body, thus resulting in a fitter body. Even bodybuilders have fears of accumulating cholesterol and fats in their bodies; acai berries work wonderfully in putting these fears to rest.

Due to their healthy antioxidant levels that keep the body always functioning at its optimum best, the acai berries not only build the muscles and tissues of the person, but they also see to it that the person remains intrinsically healthy. If you are bodybuilder who is looking at remaining healthy within and not just muscular outside, acai berries may be the right dietary supplements for you to adopt. They are also great for people who consume vegetarian diets to get more than the required supply of proteins.

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.