The Differences in Quality of Acai Berry

I n order to get the highest quality Acai berries, one must get his/her hands on the fruit within 24 hours after they are harvested. This is quite unlikely unless you book a trip to the Amazon. However, the benefits of Acai can now be enjoyed with the wide variety of products in the market that have been made possible by new techniques used to process Acai berries without sacrificing their healthful benefits. Therefore, the differences in quality of Acai berries are largely influenced by the processing methods employed by manufacturing companies as well as how the tress are grown in Acai farms across the globe.

Finding a quality, organic, pure Acai product in the market is not that easy these days due to the number of manufacturers who are trying to ride the popularity of the latest super fruit that is taking the world by storm. There are manufacturers out there that are producing diluted or attenuated Acai products stuffed with fillers which provide none of the benefits that authentic Acai can offer. Inferior quality Acai products are those with as much as 50 percent loaded with fillers. To avoid such products, it is important to check out the differences in quality of Acai berries by taking into account how they were processed.

Pasteurized Acai: Acai berries have to be pasteurized to eliminate bacteria and other harmful microbes. Companies marketing unpasteurized Acai products are ripping you off because the FDA requires the use of pasteurization, otherwise the amount of microorganisms will be too high and not ideal for human consumption. When pasteurization is done correctly at the appropriate temperature, it will not have a negative effect on Acai.

Reconstituted Acai: Simply put, this is Acai powder that has been mixed with water, along with flavoring and some other additives.  This is basically how Acai juices in the market are made. While they may still be beneficial, the presence of additives and preservatives no longer make them 'organic'. Another major drawback of manufacturing the juice form is that it has to go through the process of irradiation to kill potential microorganisms present in the fruit. The problem is that it has been shown to reduce the levels of certain vitamins like thiamine. Moreover,  irradiating can also cause chemical changes in food components that can eventually lead to the formation of mutagens such as hydrogen peroxide and various classes of organic peroxides.

Spray Dried Acai: This is by far one of the cheapest methods of processing Acai berries to produce an extract. However, the process requires the berries to be heated to extreme temperatures in order to get rid of all the water present. Unfortunately, heating destroys the anthocyanins, essentially rendering the product with little health benefits to offer. After heating, the residual berry is usually sprayed with maltodextrin, which ultimately makes up about 40 percent of the final product.

Concentrated Acai: The term sounds convincing but it is actually deceiving in a sense. Concentrated Acai is also reconstituted and along the process, much of the health benefits are lost as the berries go through pasteurization and bottle sterilization. In addition, the anthocyanins can be destroyed by heat during the bottling process, unless the product was cold bottled. There are also companies that incorporate sodium benzoate to further stretch the shelf life of their products. This poses another problem because it can result into the production of benzene which is a known carcinogen.

Acai Extracts: In this manufacturing technique, the biologically active components are extracted from a specific portion of the berries. However, it is important to note that the whole Acai berry has health benefits so it is not worth extracting from a single portion such as the pulp, seed, juice or stem, because all these have benefits to offer. Another problem with Acai extracts is that they are mostly composed of spray dried Acai berry powder. So, even if the label indicates that the product is concentrated, the extract actually contains a lot of additives.

Freeze Dried Acai: In terms of quality, this is the ideal way to process Acai berries. It may not be the cheapest nor the fastest technique, but it is highly effective in preserving the purity and freshness of the berries without adding any chemicals and artificial substances. It only requires minimal heat and no additives to dry and freeze the Acai pulp and convert it into a powdered form. Freeze-drying also avoids the direct liquid to gas transformation which destroys the nutritional content in the Acai berries. It was previously mentioned that the differences in quality of Acai berries is attributed to the way they are processed. In this regard, freeze dried Acai is simply the best.

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