[NW 30494]

What is Acai?

Açaí is a super fruit from the Amazon Rainforest where it has been consumed as a food and juice for many years. It is packed with more antioxidants than blueberries or pomegranates, plus it contains beneficial Essential fatty acids, protein and fiber.

What is the ORAC Value?

ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) measures the antioxidants capacity of fruits and vegetables. Foods with a high ORAC value have been shown to help protect cells from oxidative damage. Studies have suggested that consuming a diet rich in ORAC foods may help slow the processes associated with aging in the body and brain.

According to some research, it is suggested that daily intake should top 3000 to 5000 ORAC unit per day to have significant impact on the body.

Currently, it is estimated that the average North American consumes only 1000 to 2000 ORAC units per day.

What is an Antioxidant?

Antioxidants are nutrients that help to protect your body from the damage caused by free radicals - the toxic molecules that play a role in the development of diseases from cataracts to heart disease, from arthritis to cancer. While our bodies produce some of these free radicals as the "garbage" from some its natural processes, we are now exposed to more and more of them from our environment than ever before.

The chemical pollution of our air and water now leave us exposed to very powerful free radicals that we have never been exposed to in the past. In combination with the nutrient depletion of our foods from modern chemical agriculture, we now also get less of the important nutrients from it that would normally help our immune systems fight these chemical invaders. This is why many nutritional doctors recommend their patients take supplements of antioxidants.

How Antioxidants Protect Your Cells:

When a free radical enters your body, it is attracted to the cells that make up the different tissues of it just like a magnet to metal. It then bonds to parts of the cell, which causes it to deteriorate in a way similar to that which oxygen causes metal to rust. If the cell gets damaged enough, it dies. Worse yet, if the cell DNA is damaged and then the cell reproduces, it reproduces abnormally as a result. When this happens to our skin, we get wrinkles; when it happens to our oxygen carrying blood vessels, we get hardening of the arteries; when it happens to our joints, we get arthritis; in some people - if it happens enough - they may even get cancer.

Antioxidants work by bonding with the free radical before it can bond to the cells of your body, thus neutralizing it. This now harmless substance is then deconstructed or merely excreted.