Monday, June 22, 2009

Acai Berry Products, The Most Significant Things To Look For

By Jennifer B Davis

The acai berry has taken the nutritional world by storm. You can find a excess of diverse acai berry products online and at health food stores. Since the authentic acai berry has one of the record nutritional profiles of any food ever found in nature, many products are trying to benefit from on this little berry's intense recognition.

Many good products out there entirely make use of the inherent nutritional value found in the acai berry. However, some products out there have utilized lesser processing methods. Thus they will not give you the full nutritional benefits.

The acai berry is exceedingly delicate, consequently it must be processed within 24 hours of leaving the tree or it loses most of its nutritional value. There are two main methods of processing these berries, a superior method and an mediocre method.

Freeze-drying is the excellent method of processing. The berries are removed from the tree and immediately flash frozen and dehydrated. The result is a powder that closely maintains the original nutritional value of the actual fresh fruit.

Spray-drying is an lesser mode of processing. It uses heat, which right away compromises the nutrition. After that they use maltodextrin as a drying agent. Maltodextrin is a short-chained sugar starch. When you buy a spray-dried acai berry product you are getting a blend of the dried fruit along with maltodextrin, instead of just the fruit.

Some companies are also using the words "proprietary blend" on the label. This means that they are combining the acai berry with other inert ingredients. It is not possible to know exactly how much acai berry you are receiving in a proprietary blend. There are products that tell you exactly how much acai berry is in the product, look for those first.

Be attentive of "other ingredients" such as magnesium stearate, maltodextrin, rice or silica. These ingredients are just fillers and flowing agents and they decrease the nutritional value of the product reducing the amount of the authentic nutritional value of the fruit.

In order to receive the supreme nutritional value make sure that the product you procure is freeze-dried powder with the maximum concentration of the authentic fruit.

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