From: Schauss GA et al. Phytochemical and Nutrient Composition of the Freeze-Dried Amazonian Palm Berry, Euterpe oleraceae Mart. (Acai). Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 2006 54 (22), 8598-8603
None of the claims about Acai Berry have been scientifically proved. The berry doesn't taste exceptionally awesome either. It's a berry, just like any of the zillion other berries. The people in the Amazon eat it for subsistence just like the Irish eat potatoes. A look at the nutritional profile tells you why. Eating 100 g of this berry gives you nearly 534 calories - the amount you get from 5 100g small potatoes.
The people of Amazon live in tropical forestlands and don't drive cars all the time. They probably don't have 24 hour access to pizza delivery, fast-food, potato chips and all kinds of high-sugar snacks that were heaped in the cart during a recent grocery visit. They are not being force-fed high-fructose corn syrup through EVERY conceivable product on grocery shelves. They probably eat a lot of vegetables because they don't have as many staple-cereal farmlands.
But all that doesn't really matter, correct? We could totally have a million cakes in our pantry, eat a billion more, drink a zillion bottles of this "magic berry" and voila! - we will be magically moulded in the form of the lean and fit Amazonians. Sure, and we were all created from scratch in 7 days flat. It just wasn't enough time to give us a functional brain.
LOL @(e:metalpeter). If you put the evil genius of the fast food companies and diet companies together, I am sure you could sell those 3 ideas to people. hahaha
@(e:james) Sounds like a good strategy. You could get your carbs *and* proteins from legumes/lentils and get a bonus of fibre. Why were you avoiding fava beans? They seem comparable with other legumes (slighly less fibre, though...).
Rice is plainly evil with respect to the type and density of carbohydrates you get. So are other refined grains. Potatoes are another big carbohydrate cesspit. Bananas might be good for potassium but in terms of carbohydrates, they give you too much.
Yeah, I am a type one diabetic, so this diet makes even more sense.
My old macronutrient break down was roughly 10/60/30 fat/carbs/protein. I now try to keep it 30/30/40. I do that by getting almost all my carbs from fruit. Most of my fat comes from nuts and avocado, as my protein is lean meat, soy, or dairy.
But, I also love to cheat. I am cooking up some fava beans because I have been fiending for them for weeks!
Berries are healthy but stuff made from them wouldn't mean that it is healthy but most people don't think of that.
For some people there are things that can help them lose weight. If that don't ever have caffeine it will help speed up their metabolism hence why it is in diet pills. Also ephedrine worked great but it also caused Heart Attacks so that is illegal now.
There are 3 things that other then changing your diet will cause weight lose.
Sound the drums
1. Get a crack Problem
2. do lots of Heroin and coke
3. Go around people who have the flu until you catch it and are sick for a week in bed not moving that always seems to take some weight off
heheh - ask anyone to increase their water intake and decrease their cookies etc and I bet 40% would complain that they don't like that they have to pee all the time. There is always some crazy excuse.
Also, eating out is a major problem that no one seems to care about. You just can't control what you eat if you eat out more than even 40% of the time. You will have to compensate for eating out the rest of the 60% of the time with drastic measures - that are just not practical.
@(e:james): Missed your comment. :-) So what is your diet like? I am interested, because you have Type I DM, correct? What were you eating before? What are you eating now?
I think the volume of 100g dried Acai berries is roughly 1/4th of a pint box of blueberries. So non-dried volume will be about 1/2 of that box. The fibre value is pretty surprising. Interestingly, it is used as an antidiarrhoeal agent in parts of rural South America. I guess that makes sense then. :)
I don't think antioxidants can do anything to increase anyone's BMR. BMR is determined by the size of the major metabolic organs (liver mainly) and of course, the metabolic status of the body.
I agree with the "eat less than you can burn" strategy. It is true that the net harvest of calories is much higher from fat but carbohydrates and fats affect the satiety centres of the body a bit differently.
It is usually tough for people to eat several large portions of fat all the time. Lesser quantities of fat are required to reach satiety. (Recall how famous French foods that consist of maybe 90% butter are served - in tiny portions. And people don't really ask for more, because they can't generally eat more. That, and the frogs are boorish snobs. hehehe)
Carbohydrates are a bit tricky. Their metabolism is through the insulin pathways and pretty quick. These pathways control the glucose levels in blood - a the major driver of hunger. Even if there is a minor insulin resistance (common in nearly everyone nowadays, because they are fat to begin with) you continue to feel hungry. The result is that you can continue to eat nearly 5-10 times as much carbohydrate based foods as fat based foods. You can end up with 2-5 times more calories than eating a fat-based (but very much smaller) diet.
It's so typical however, that fast-food joints distort this whole idea. They might as well serve Acai berry shakes with the avocado-cheese "healthy" burgers.
Meh, I do think carbs are evil. I am on a diet now that is low carb and high fat, it makes controlling how hungry I am real easy because carbs get turned into blood sugar real fast. Fat and protein has to take up space for a while before that happens.
But, this berry - like the goji berry, the blue berry, the mangostein - isn't going to do anything magical. Less calories in than out.
And metabolism.. you want to increase metabolism? Fucking jog. GHA!
People are stupid.
32g of fat per 100g?? These magic berries are 32% fat?? Wow.
I thought most fruits and vegetables, while loaded with sugars, were low in fat... except maybe avocados... Yikes. And 44g fiber?? How much is 100g?! I thought that was like a big handful.
But yes, we are always suckers for any sort of "get (rich/thin/famous/etc) quick" scam. I don't know why people haven't figured it out yet... if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. there is no magic pill.
When I was in med school, our dean lost about 100lb. Everyone kept asking him his secret. He would stop what he was doing and say "want to know my secret? are you ready? I burned more calories than I ate."
I thought the claim with all these new magic super foods was that they have 'antioxidants' etc and are supposed to increase your basal metabolic rate.
I dunno. Perhaps I'm just too simple minded, but that's how see it. You need to consume less calories than you burn. I see fat as the biggest culprit, simply since it has more calories per gram than carbs. I don't understand why carbs are seen as so 'evil' and this low-carb craze. Are the calories in carbs somehow 'worse' than the calories in fat? I'd think the opposite- because of cholesterol etc.
Like when restaurants offer their 'healthy' burgers. Load it up with avocado and cheese- but take away the bun, and now it's good for you?! Huh?
I still think that if you take a vitamin and drink lots of water you could starve the weight off without .
Anyway, this comment is way too long. But, I'm with you tiny.