Acai berries

[ginkgo]

You have heard of acai berries and the juice made from it. I thought that I knew a lot about it. Because amino acids have to be combined in different amounts to create protein, they have the perfect ideal ratio of them and compare foods to this ratio.

Because of that, they say that eggs are the most ideal protein. By dry weight (water removed), eggs are 10% protein but acai is also 10% protein. Also the amino acid profile (ratios) of eggs is almost identical to that of the acai berries.

Avocados and olives are the 2 fruits that have a high amount of essential fatty acids (fat). But acai has a fat content that is almost identical to olives. I have a brochure with the numbers but I do not know if it is online.

[Mremedia]

I've been reading a bit about Acai also, and the more I read, the more I want to learn about them. I'm looking into "mona vie" juice right now as well.. could be something huge!

[stanmrak]

There's a lot of hype about acai now, just like there is for goji berries, mangosteen and noni. These are all great fruits with extremely high antioxidant content, but none of them is clearly superior to any of the others; each of them has unique benefits. One ounce of any of these will give you the nutritional value of 3 servings of fruit; a great way to get most of your daily quota.

MonaVie may be a good product, but it's rumored to be only about 40% acai juice (they don't tell you exactly). You can get a 85% pure acai juice for less than half the cost of Monavie, or a 100% acai juice for $10 less. Same goes for all those network-marketing juices — overpriced.

[ginkgo]

Originally Posted by Mremedia

I've been reading a bit about Acai also, and the more I read, the more I want to learn about them. I'm looking into "mona vie" juice right now as well.. could be something huge!

Monavie is a billion dollar MLM company already. Their product costs the same as the other MLM beverages which is about $30 a quart. They call them fung shei beverages. Just kidding! They call them functional beverages. Monavie does have a very good marketing plan.

But I go to Whole Foods and buy a quart of Sambazon organic acai juice that is very thick and it costs $7 for a quart. Note that I do not buy into the store's psychological tricks of calling it $6.99. Then people think that is is $6 and change. But it is $7 minus a penny. Something that is $999.99 is looked at as a 9 hundred dollars and change but it is a thousand dollars minus a penny.

Eleven years ago there were no Whole Foods in Philadelphia. Now there are 2 and I have to go to both since they have different products that I want. Only one of them has the above mentioned acai juice, but it has no soups that are "no salt added" (NSA). The other does not have the acai juice but has NSA soups.

The MLM companies do not use organic juices. I am a distributor for an MLM (I have been in it 11 years but the drink is new) that has a drink with all organic juices including camu camu, acai, cacao, dragon's blood and others. Cacao is chocolate without milk or sugar added to it. I am not allowed to mention the name of the drink or the famous singer/movie star that is part owner of the company. All ingredients from the Amazon rainforest.

[ginkgo]

Originally Posted by stanmrak

There's a lot of hype about acai now, just like there is for goji berries, mangosteen and noni. These are all great fruits with extremely high antioxidant content, but none of them is clearly superior to any of the others; each of them has unique benefits. One ounce of any of these will give you the nutritional value of 3 servings of fruit; a great way to get most of your daily quota.

Actually these different fruits were chosen since they are very high in antioxidants. Dozens of studies have been done on the xanthones in mangosteen. Goji berries have a lot of lycopene in them. Sea buckthorn fruit has omega-7 ESAs that you cannot find elsewhere. The popular ones are omega-3, 6 and 9.

Camu camu fruit has 40 times the vitamin C that is in oranges. Also James Duke, famous botanist for the USDA research, has lots of great things to say about camu camu fruit like about the leucine and serine in it.

These strange fruits are not being introduced to the U.S. since they are no better than other fruits. Other ones that are superfruits are yumberry (from China) and aronia.

Now aronia is from the USA. The native Americans ate it but the white men called it chokeberry since it has a strong taste and so it never caught on. But now they are learning from studies that it is higher in antioxidants than most fruits. My local CVS drugstore has a juice made of apple, pomegranate, grape and aronia.

For years the only MLM company with a juice was Noni but it grew into a billion dollar MLM so others followed. Decades ago the MLM, Forever Living Products (FLP) introduced a miracle plant to the USA from Egypt that no one ever heard of. It was claimed to be the best thing for burns (even though the FDA does not approve this claim) and other things including internal use. Now aloe vera is in thousands of products but FLP grows most of it in the USA.

Over a decade ago, the MLM company, Oil of Melalalalalalalalalaluca (I am pokng fun at the name of the company), introduced tee tree oil to the US and now that is in lots of products including Trader Joes dishwashing liquid. I asked Trader Joes if they had acai juice and they said "no."

There is one fruit that is only available in the US as a supplement pill. It is super healthy and very high in antioxidants. After it is grown they throw away the fruit. They only want the seeds in it that are called 'beans.' If they were beans then they would be the most popular beans in the US. Watch for this to become more popular. It is the fruit that the coffee beans come from.

Also chocolate beans are the seeds in a fruit and I have never tasted that fruit but many have eaten it.

[stanmrak]

Originally Posted by ginkgo

But I go to Whole Foods and buy a quart of Sambazon organic acai juice that is very thick and it costs $7 for a quart.

I buy Sambazon products also, but not their juice. The list of ingredients shows pomegranate juice (which I can get for $2 a quart) and water as the 2nd and 3rd ingredients. There can't be much acai berry in it if it costs $7 a quart, but at least they're not charging $30 and up, like MonaVie. MonaVie wants you to believe that there's something magical about their blend that makes it worth the money, and maybe there is. No one knows.

I say, if you want the benefits of acai, buy acai. If you buy a blend with things like apple, pear juice and water added, don't pay a premium price.

[ginkgo]

I guess I had better search Sambazon since I did not know that they have other things. The Sambazon acai juice is thick since it is made with acai puree, agave and lime juice and that is all, not including the less than 0.5% of ingredients.

That is why Whole Foods (South St) sells it and Whole Foods (21th St) does not sell it? It says right there on the bottle that it contains 375+ acai berries per bottle. They are bragging about it. So get some now before they raise the price to $12 per bottle. The MLM juices are in glass bottles and they always cost a lot more than plastic bottle juices like Sambazon. I guess it includes the extra weight of glass and the breakage that occurs or extra padding.

Here is the label on the acai juice saying that it has 375+ berries. Click on to it to magnify it. http://www.sambazon.com/nutrition/32originalJuice.jpg

Maybe they are trying to get a lot more business with a low price. Then they will raise to $7.50 and people will not care. Then to $8.50 and people will not pay attention. My area has lots of pizza places. A new one opened but bragged about having the lowest prices and they did. After getting lots of business, they raised the price like 5 cents or 10 cents on each item. Then they kept doing it for years, like every 4 months. Now they cost the same or a lttle more than others but they have a loyal base of customers.

Should I call Sambazon and see if I can buy stock in their company? Watch out! This is the origianal blend. They also have another one with blueberry and pomegranate for the same price.

I saw some pomegranate juice at Trader Joes but it had less potassium than another brand. So since it is concentrate and water, I guess it has more water in than the other one. Again this acai juice is thick since there is no water added to it. It sounds like your pomegranate juice has a lot of water.

[chrisrushton]

i know someone who sells acai berries. even they admit that it's a total scam.

[stanmrak]

Originally Posted by chrisrushton

i know someone who sells acai berries. even they admit that it's a total scam.

Acai berries are not a scam, but you could create a scam using them. Many people have.

Kind of like taking oats that sell for less than a dollar a pound and turning them into Cheerios, which sells for $5 a pound. Oats are not the scam, food processing is.

[stanmrak]

Originally Posted by ginkgo

I guess I had better search Sambazon since I did not know that they have other things. The Sambazon acai juice is thick since it is made with acai puree, agave and lime juice and that is all, not including the less than 0.5% of ingredients.

Funny - they don't show this product on their website. That juice is a different blend.