Acai – pronounced ‘Ah-Sigh-E’ – burst onto the health and diet scene a couple years ago with claims of everything from reversing aging and reducing wrinkles to helping cure diseases such as diabetes and promote weight loss. How many of these claims have any validity and can Acai berry products really help you lose weight?
The short answer is that Acai berries are probably good for you, but they are not a cure-all.
Every few years marketers latch on to a new wonder tonic and make outlandish claims about it’s potential for curing disease or improving health. Starting with snake oil salesmen selling watered down whiskey cure-all potions, marketers have always looked for wonder products to sell to unsuspecting consumers. A few years ago it was all about super blue green algae. More recently it was the Goji berry. Now it’s all about the Acai Berry. So what are the facts?
Acai Berry as an Antioxident
An antioxident is literally a molecule that slows or stops the oxidation of another molecule. You see, even though we need oxygen to live, oxygen is also corrosive. Much as rust is the oxidation of iron (oxygen + iron and water or water vapor), our bodies are aged by our exposure to oxygen, and antioxidents in theory slow the aging process.
So how effective is Acai as an antioxident? Quackwatch and others have tested commercially available Acai juices and found that:
“açaí juice has only middling levels of antioxidants—less than that of Concord grape, blueberry, and black cherry juices, but more than cranberry, orange, and apple juices.”
So in other words, if you want to get the highest level of antioxidents, don’t spend big bucks on acai – simply drink much less expensive grape, blueberry, or black cherry juice. Further, tests have yet to prove whether juices high in antioxidents provide any health benefit at all, so your mileage may vary.
In fact, most juices marketed as Acai actually contain more grape or blueberry juices. Again, why spend big bucks on the acai when you can buy grape or blueberry juice at the store for far less?
Acai Berry Pills
The problem with all health supplements is that they don’t require testing by the FDA. As such, we have no idea what percentage of active ingredient is in the pills in the first place. Tests have shown that many of these products contain primarily rice flour or another neutral filler with a sprinkling of freeze dried Acai. Of course the market is unregulated, so the quantity of Acai can vary greatly from product to product.
The bigger problem with many of these pills is the way in which they’re marketed and sold. They make unsubstantiated health claims, then offer ‘free trial offers’ with a 14 day trial. Generally the 14 day trial starts the day you place your order, so by the time you receive the trial product your trial is over and the recurring billing kicks in to the tune of $60+ a month.
Many of these companies are under investigation due to deceptive marketing and deceptive billing practices. We strongly recommend that you read the fine print before place an order – especially for a ‘free trial offer’.
Final Thoughts
Acai is simply a berry, so it’s not fair to call it a scam, however many companies are selling Acai in a very scammy way. Do some research on Acai before spending money on any Acai products. Wikipedia has an excellent writeup on Acai that you can read here.
Remember that no pill or juice is a substitute for proper diet and exercise. The programs that we review on this website are all based on diet and exercise and are designed to be easy-to-follow and to accommodate your busy lifestyle. We also only review programs that offer a full money-back guarantee, as we want our readers to be able to get their money back if the diet program they try doesn’t work for them for any reason. C
Our recent favorite diet program is The Diet Solution Program by Isabel De Los Rios. Isabel has helped thousands of people to lose weight – and may be able to help you too! Good luck with your diet and weight loss goals, and stay far away from Acai Berry Scams!
What I like about your post is that it does not have a commercial tone. Nowadays the great majority of articles and posts on personal blogs or different websites are stuffed with too obvious advertising messages. In my opinion, nobody really likes to read simple advertisements, pieces of writing that do not bring any valuable facts. So, thanks for offering quality instead of empty quantity!