People are literally bouncing off the walls, losing their mind over the next wonder drug, the acai berry. It has all the right elements, promising instant weight loss, grown deep in the Amazon rainforest, and its promoters who promise everything short of a date with Angelina Jolie to get you to try it. The real truth is that it is NOT a miracle cure, but it does have a significant track record of proven success in the area of weight loss and improved nutrition if the supplements are taken as part of a balanced diet.

The Acai Berry. How do you pronounce it?

First of all, it’s the “uh sigh” berry, not the “uck-eye” berry, so stop saying it that way. You’re hurting the ears of Brazillians everywhere. To most Western eyes, used to English and Spanish, the letter “c” before a vowel is always hard, but this berry’s name comes from Portuguese, since it is found natively and harvested in Brazil.

What is it?

Well, what it isn’t: It’s not a magical elixir guaranteed to take inches off your belly and add zeros to your bank account instantly, overnight, with no effort on your part at all. It won’t make your kids listen and it won’t make your dog stop barking at midnight.

Yeah, thanks for that. So WHAT IS IT?

It’s a berry. It grows on a palm tree called, you guessed it, the acai palm. The name is a cognate of the word that the indigenous people who inhabited the area use to refer to this fruit. It is a small, round blackish or purple berry that is about an inch in diameter. It sort of looks like a grape, but it’s a little smaller and it has less fruity pulp inside. It also grows in bigger bunches, with anywhere from five to nine hundred berries in each bunch.

What does it taste like?

It’s tough to describe something that you haven’t tasted. Kind of like explaining the color “green” to a blind man, but people who have had it say that it tastes a little less sweet than most other berries, and describe it as slightly tart. Some people also report that it has traces of clove or chocolate taste.

Is it good for you?

Yes. It has protein, calcium, vitamin A, fiber, amino acids, iron and a little vitamin C.

Yeah, so does orange juice. What’s all the fuss about Acai?

Well, Acai is a little different. As I said before, it’s been misrepresented a little in the media. It was featured on Oprah a few years ago, and that is when all the hype started. The berry has always been around, and for thousands of years, people living in the Amazon rainforests of Brazil have been eating it. It is a superior fruit and it has a few qualities that make it better than the fruits that we normally eat. At least those of us who don’t live in the Amazon.

It has fiber, which helps keep food moving through the digestive tract, and it has powerful antioxidants, which are healthy for a number of reasons. It has powerful phytosterols, which are nutrients that help the body absorb the food that it eats.

But the real power of the acai berry is that some studies have found that it lowers cholesterol and blood pressure. It has also been found to increase the metabolism and speed up the rate at which the body burns fat, helping people to lose weight faster, as long as they act sensibly in terms of other dietary intake and appropriate exercise.

Other fruits may be healthy, but most of them don’t do that. They just occupy space in your stomach that would otherwise go to junk food and fat.

OK, well, if it is so healthy and helps weight loss, why is it only becoming popular now?

Good question. The fruit dies rapidly and becomes useless much faster than any other fruit around. It spoils in less than twenty-four hours from the time it is picked. But modern advances in refrigeration have finally made their way into the deep Amazon basin, and new methods of preservation have finally created the possibility of quickly harvesting and exporting the pulp and juice.

Grapes cost two dollars a pound. Why is acai so expensive?

You get what you pay for. The acai is an exotic fruit full of antioxidants and nutrients. It is cut down by a harvester in the Amazon who climbs up a tree with a machete and hacks off a bunch. The fruit must then be quickly processed, and the pulp must be refrigerated or frozen immediately, so that the nutrients do not dissipate.

This is becoming one of the largest renewable crops in the Amazon, feeding families and entire villages with the money it generates. It also helps the environment because Acai harvesting is starting to replace more environmentally damaging crops like slash and burn sugar cane and cattle.

Is a supplement as good as the real fruit?

Yes, and, in fact, with acai, the supplement is better. You can pick between eating an orange, drinking the juice or taking a supplement. The same is true for apples, grapes and cranberries. But the acai starts to quickly lose all nutrients within less than one day of its harvest. The berry is almost impossible to find outside of the Amazon basin. The juice and frozen pulp may be sold in stores, but its nutritional value is often unreliable. The only good way to ensure that you are getting the real benefits of the acai fruit is by finding a quality acai supplement.

What is the best place to get an acai supplement?

Many places on the internet offer some variation of this product, but you should be sure that you’re getting a supplement that contains real acai berry and not an imitation.

You can get a free two month trial at www.acaiberryfreeoffer.com and monthly refills are offered at a deep discount. Experience the powerful health benefits of the acai berry today.