Where Does the Acai Berry Come From?
Posted on November 18, 2008
Filed Under Food |
If you watch TV or read news articles, you will most likely have come across the acai berry. You probably have heard that it is a very healthy fruit, much healthier than other berries, fruits or vegetables. The acai berry has been featured in many TV programs, magazines and news.
The acai berry is not a new type of fruit. It is not a hybrid berry and its nutrients and health benefits are natural, not artificially created. The acai berry is native in low-lit, swamp areas. There are a lot of acai berries in the Brazilian rain forest where it is hard to get to.
The acai berry grows on a tall, large tree called Euterpe oleracea but most people just refer to the tree as the acai palm tree. The acai palm tree can have many trunks. Some of them have just a few trunks but there are some that have 25 trunks. Each acai berry tree can be as tall as 25 meters tall and as wide as six inches in diameter.
Hanging from an acai palm tree are its many branches where acai berries are. The acai berries, in turn, hang down the branches like spiky, cluttered bushes. Each acai berry on a branch is right next to another berry on the same branch.
The acai berry is a small, rounded fruit of the acai palm tree. It is deep and dark purple in color. Sometimes, the acai berry can be so dark that the color is almost black. Each acai palm tree produces many acai berry fruit, 20kg per year is common.
People in Brazil love to eat fresh acai berry. The berry has many uses, not just as fruit but the acai pulp is great in wines, liqueurs or as food flavor or color. Some people use the acai berry to make other products such as acai berry juice, acai ice cream and acai cosmetics.
The acai berry has many healthy and medicinal properties. It is one of the best antioxidant and contains many minerals, essential fatty acids, and lots of other nutrients that the body needs to be healthy. The acai pulp is where most of the nutrients are found so to get the most health benefits of the acai berry, eat the pulp too.
Since people now know that the acai berry is so healthy, the acai berry is more in demand now than ever. In the past, the acai berry used to be hand picked but nowadays many companies have them mass harvested to meet the world demand of the acai berry. Unfortunately, automation will always decrease the effectiveness of the end product.
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