Acai has been included in many health beverage fruit juices lately due to its numerous vitamins and phytonutrients. The benefits of Acai as a superfruit/superfood, as well as some of the research behind it, is discussed below.
Euterpe oleracea is a species of palm tree Found in South America. The polyphenols in acai slow the proliferation of human leukemia cells.
Nutritional Values: Anthocyanins (cyanidin-3-glucoside and cyanidin-3-rutinoside) 10-30x that of red-wine, B vitamins, fiber, protein, omega-3's, oleic acid (an omega-9), potassium, copper, & manganese. Popular in recent years, it contains essential fatty acids, amino acids, and antioxidants, including resveratrol.
Wikipedia states: "A comparative analysis reported that açaí has intermediate antioxidant potency among 11 varieties of frozen juice pulps, scoring lower than acerola, mango, strawberry, and grapes. A powdered preparation of freeze-dried açaí fruit pulp and skin was shown to contain anthocyanins (3.19 mg/g); however, anthocyanins accounted for only about 10% of the overall antioxidant capacity. The powdered preparation was also reported to contain twelve flavonoid-like compounds, including homoorientin, orientin, taxifolin, deoxyhexose, isovitexin, scoparin, as well as proanthocyanidins (12.89 mg/g), and low levels of resveratrol (1.1 μg/g). A study on another different freeze-dried acai product (Opti-Acai) reported that the formulation contained much lower levels of anthocyanins, proanthocyanadins, and other polyphenol compounds as compared with blueberries and other antioxidant-rich fruits." In a study of different açaí varieties for their antioxidant capacity, a white species displayed no antioxidant activity against different oxygen radicals, whereas the purple variety most often used commercially had antioxidant activity against peroxyl radicals and to a lesser extent peroxynitrite but little activity against hydroxyl radicals.
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