Acai Berry Info - How To Buy The Real Stuff


LOOK FOR USDA ORGANIC CERTIFIED ACAI: Products that are USDA Licensed Organic are meant to assure patrons the organic foods they purchase are produced, processed, and authorized to be consistent with countrywide organic standards. This is vital because if you're buying an acai product that's non-organic, it might contain dangerous insecticides and poisons. Acai products which are chemical and preservative free will give you the maximum benefits. acai products that are non-organic could cause you more damage than benefit. Keep an eye open for the USDA ORGANIC label before.

KOSHER CERTIFIED: Some corporations go a step farther and get their acai product Kosher Certificated too. This adds another layer of QC which makes sure that you are getting the best quality acai juice or capsules available on the market today. Kosher verification isn't very easy to get - you can see the wants here on the OUKOSHER.ORG site.

NO SUGAR: Look for acai juice that contains no added sugar, you don't want
sugar in your acai for obvious reasons and because sugar is the #1 cause
of inflammation and acai is an anti-inflammatory. The acai berry has high
levels of antioxidants and you don't want anything else in there that
would compromise the high ORAC levels. Also acai has been linked to
battling leukemia see this article on acai and cancer. Cancer
feeds off of sugar.

NO PRESERVATIVES: Make sure the acai you are buying has absolutely no preservatives. When purchasing any health products, sometimes the benefits can be canceled out by the preservatives that are added to the product. .

GLASS BOTTLES: Ensure the acai pulp juice you are buying comes in a glass bottle and is unclarified and unfiltered. Any acai pulp juice product that's packed in a plastic bottle will cause plastic leeching regardless of what they tell you. Juices that are put in plastic bottles need to be hot filled at high tempereratures to kill off micros and bacteria and to santize the bottle. The sole acai products that are satisfactory in plastic bottles and this plastic must be a tough plastic are capsules and loose powder.

UNFILTERED: Make sure the acai product you are buying is unfiltered to maintain the wholeness of the acai pulp and fruit.

THICKNESS: True, authentic acai juice is thick -- no water added, no sugar, no preservatives, no sodium, just pure organic acai pulp.

LISTED WITH THE BBB?: Go to www.BBB.org and find out if the company has any current complaints against it.

ORAC LEVELS: Look for acai juice which has at least three thousand ORACs per one oz serving. Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity ( ORAC ) is a strategy of measuring antioxidant capacities of different foods. If an acai company doesn't mention the ORAC levels of their acai, it is probably because their levels are extraordinarily low.. SEE OUR ORAC CHART HERE

IS IT SOLD IN STORES?:   Real acai companies sell their products in stores - fake "free trial companies" only sell online because they are not legitimate enough to get their products in major chains like Whole Foods and others who carry acai.

PASTEURIZATION: Acai needs to be pasteurized or as a minimum flash pasteurized to kill off micros and bacteria. Any one recommending they're selling unpasteurized acai isn't telling the truth it isn't permitted by the FDA and even if it was you would not need to consume it as the micros and bacteria would be too high and pasteurization is what kills the micros off.

When pasteurization is done right at the right temperatures the acai will remain untouched. Actually when freeze dried powder is made of the pulp puree, the pulp puree needs to be first pasteurized or flash pasteurized to kill off the micros and then it is turned into freeze dried powder.