The Facts About Acai Drinks

Acai juice is everywhere -- celebrities are drinking and eating the berries, doctors recommend it and of course tons of companies are in business to capitalize off the acai berry juice.

The acai fruit is mostly found on the beaches of Brazil and Peru. a few hundred years ago Brazilians began to harvest acai in an attempt to overcome a shortage of food. They originally extracted juice from the acai fruit to make red wine.

To see the Acai that we recommend and use daily go here.

Acai juice is said to have between 10 and 30 times more antioxidants than grapes,pomegranates, and even blueberries. Because of the extensive vitamins, amino acids, minerals, Omega acids, and other properties, the acai very is said to be one of the most nutritionally dense berries on the planet.

Because of the hype, there are a multitude of companies who are trying to cash in on the popularity of acai juice. That is why you need to be careful and really do your homework when you are investigating a company that produces acai juice. Try to find out what their quality control standards are, how they manufacture the juice, and search the Internet for negative information on the company. Any time a health food reaches enormous popularity like the acai berry, you'll always see a lot of unscrupulous business owners coming out of the woodwork to take your money. Experts say that it is best to look for a company who has extremely high quality control standards, certified organic, and even certified kosher. Quality control is a key to effective acai juice and without it you are paying for regular juice and you are not getting the advertised benefits from the acai berry.
THE PROBLEM

QUALITY: Finding an acai company who creates a quality, organic, pure acai product who will not rip you off. Since acai is so popular these days, many manufacturers have entered the market creating watered down acai products with fillers which give you NONE of the benefits that authentic acai will give you. There are a lot of companies selling inferior acai products that are more than 50% filled with carriers like magnesium stearate, multidextrin, soy lecithin and others..

FREE TRIAL SCAMMERS: (By the way, they are not really free because you have to pay shipping!) The reason they charge you for shipping is so they can get your credit card info and charge it every month. I am talking about all of the "free trial" offers out there who promise a free trial but instead they start charging you $89 per month or more without you knowing it - then they make it very hard to dispute the transaction. Also all of these free trial offers are shipping you spray dried butchered acai powder that is about 75-95% dried corn starch! What the reports on these free trial scammers fail to tell you is that the free trial scammers are shipping you worthless placebo! Real acai works but it has to be of the highest quality only. Not just a trace ingredient.

FREE TRIAL SCAMMERS WHO TRY TO ACT LEGITIMATE: Since the "free trial' acai scammers have been exposed lately in the national media, the same scammers who peddle these schemes set their websites up so they appear to be educating consumers about free trial offers. So they start by saying BEWARE OF FREE TRIAL SCAMS -- but the problem is, they are in fact the scammers, they just try to divert attention by appearing as if they are warning about acai scams.
THE SOLUTION

LOOK FOR USDA ORGANIC CERTIFIED ACAI: Products that are USDA Certified Organic are intended to assure consumers that the organic foods they purchase are produced, processed, and certified to be consistent with national organic standards. This is very important because if you are purchasing an acai product that is non-organic, it could contain harmful pesticides and toxins. Acai products which are chemical and preservative free will give you the maximum benefits. However, acai products that are non-organic could cause you more harm than good. Look for the USDA ORGANIC label before buying ANY acai berry product.

KOSHER CERTIFIED: Some companies go a step further and get their acai product Kosher Certified as well. This adds another layer of quality control which ensures that you are getting the highest quality acai juice or capsules available on the market today. Kosher certification is not easy to get - you can see the requirements here on the OUKOSHER.ORG website. Amazon Thunder is one of the only acai products on the market that are Kosher Certified

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. 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: Make sure the acai pulp juice you are purchasing comes in a glass bottle and is unclarified and unfiltered. Any acai pulp juice product that is packaged in a plastic bottle will cause plastic leeching no matter what they tell you. Juices that are put in plastic bottles have to be hot filled at high tempereratures to kill off micros and bacteria and to santize the bottle. The only acai products that are acceptable in plastic bottles and this plastic must be a hard 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.

ORAC LEVELS: Look for acai juice that has at least 3000 ORACs per one ounce serving. Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity (ORAC) is a method 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 very low. High quality acai products have high ORAC levels.

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 has to be pasteurized or at the least flash pasteurized to kill off micros and bacteria. Anyone suggesting they are selling unpasteurized acai is not telling the truth it is not allowed by the FDA and even if it was you wouldn't want to consume it because 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 unharmed. In fact when freeze dried powder is made from the pulp puree, the pulp puree has to be first pasteurized or flash pasteurized to kill off the micros and then it is turned into freeze dried powder.