I was first introduced to the Acai (ah-sEYE) berry in an Old Orchard juice product. This little berry is my personal miracle fruit. Yes, it's full of antioxidants and full of vitamins, and is as much a wonder fruit as pomegranate, blackberries, and blueberries, but for me the acai does something more! When I consume one serving of any product containing acai per day for a week, I lose massive amounts of weight instantly. It's amazing.
So what is the acai berry?
Acai is a fruit native to South America and is harvested in the Brazilian rainforest. It grows on a type of palm tree, opposed to a bush or small shrub or tree like cherries, blueberries, raspberries, etc. It is about the size of a grape and grows on branches with 700-900 fruits per panicle. They contain large seeds that take up about 80% of the fruit. They are black-purple in color, similar to huckleberries, and look like a cross between blueberries and huckleberries. It's flavor has chocolate undertones.
My second encounter with the acai was in Vitamin Water's XXX, which is an acai-pomegranate-blueberry blend. It is very good. My friends and I refer to it as "dirty water" because of the name.
Tropicana's commercial for their new raspberry acai juice made me go on a hunt for more products and I came across this V8 Fruit Fusion juice which also has an acai flavor! I'm not sure what brought this new product to the US, but the berry is a native food source from Belize to Brazil, and has many other uses as well. But you know me, I love exotic flavors. I'll be disappointed when this lovely little berry is pulled from the shelves when everyone is over the fad.
As I was doing some research into the harvesting methods since I feel guilty about anything that comes from the rainforest, I found out that Haagen-Daaz got in on the action too. I really want to try this!
