What's inside the Acai berry?

What is the composition of the acai berry? Ever since it has been thrust into an international public consciousness, people have been fascinated by its seemingly wonderful properties. Considering that it has been known to the world outside the Amazon area for just four years, it’s really too soon for studies and research to prove its exact contents conclusively. However, studies have proved the existence of a lot of goodness in this berry. Let’s take a look at what it contains.

The acai berry is around an inch in diameter and looks a bit larger than a grape. It grows on slender palms that are abundant in the lands that lie on the Amazon River in South and Central America. The fruits hang on the palms in clusters of around 800 or more fruits and the trees bear fruit twice a tear. The fruit has a large seed and very little pulp and the skin is usually purple-black in color when it is ripe, though there are a few varieties that are green. The skin and the pulp are what are eaten. The locals eat the berries as food and in fact in early times, this fruit made up a large portion of the locals’ diet. The botanical name of the fruit is Euterpe olerace, named after the ancient Greek mythological muse, Euterpe.

The fruit has a high fat content so it needs to be processed and frozen very quickly once it has been plucked. The studies for composition have mainly been done on the processed, freeze-dried fruit. The processing means that the fruit is made into pulp and frozen or freeze-dried into a powder. According to reports, the fruit contains 52% carbohydrates, 8% protein and 32.5% fat. For every hundred grams, it contains nearly 534 calories. As for the vitamin and mineral content, there were small amounts of Vitamin C and larger amounts of Vitamin A seen to be present. It also contains iron, calcium, aspartic acid, glutamic acid and amino acids.

The fat content as we said before, is high and research shows that it contains palmitic acid, oleic acid and linoleic acid. Also present is beta-sitosterol. It is because of the substances in these oils that the fruit tends to break down and spoil when it is not stored well.

What the acai berry contains in large quantities are antioxidants. The anthocyanins, which are flavonoid pigments found in deep blue and purple skinned fruits, are said to be 30 times as those in red grapes. It is the anthocyanins that keep the French so trim and healthy because never mind how much they eat, they also drink a lot of red wine. The ORAC or the Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity of the acai berry is said to be the highest ever found in any berry. If we were to take a look at the USDA daily recommendation for ORAC units, it states that it should be over 3,000 for good health.

Today, most Americans have less than 1,000 a day. The freeze-dried acai berry has over 5000 units in every 10 grams. That’s the antioxidant power of the acai berry. It all adds up to a berry packed with a lot of goodness to keep you healthy and maybe even make you well if you are suffering from ill health.