Industry Commentators Pleased With Arizona Acai Settlement

The landmark Arizona settlement between the Attorney General Terry Goddard and health product distributor Central Coast Nutraceuticals is causing something of a stir in the Acai berry industry. Central Coast Nutraceuticals – CCN – was one of the larger forces in on line Acai capsules sales. The case brought against them scared and pleased people in equal measure; the magnitude of the agreed settlement of $1,375,000 paid by CCN accentuated whatever feelings people had on the matter.

The case was brought as a direct result of the many hundreds of complaints submitted to the AG’s office over the past few months. Consumers were annoyed by a number of things, mainly by what they felt was deception as to the terms and conditions of the acai berry free trial offered by CCN. Also towards the top of the list of grievances was the fact that people were being charged products that they explicitly deselected during the ordering process.

Industry commentators must generally be pleased with the way it has all gone. Companies like CCN who make their money through what is essentially deception and questionable business practices are bad for the industry as a whole; needless to say they turn off potential acai customers in a big way. Those that are against the settlement are likely to be people and organizations that share all or part of the CCN marketing model in their own businesses.

Acai Berry For A New Kind Of Diet

Have you ever seen beautiful purple flowers? How about a deep red grape or a bright red Fuji apple? If you answered yes (and if you said no – stop reading this article and go out and enjoy nature more!) then you have seen anthocyanins. Anthocyanins are flavonoid pigments that plants and fruits synthesize. Anthocyanins give plants and fruits their beautiful pigmentation – but it is not all about looks. Anthocyanins can acts as a sunscreen for plants and in fruits the bright color attracts animals which feast on the fruits and in the process disperse the seeds. However, the aspect of Anthocyanins that is of most interest in regard to the acai fruit is their antioxidant properties.

Fruits (like the Acai Berry Fruit) that are exposed to strong sunlight face a tremendous amount of ultra violet light stress. This UV light triggers free radicals to form in the fruit. Fruits, such as the Acai berry, develop high levels of anthocyanins because they have very strong antioxidants properties and can quench the free radicals. Here is the interesting part – the antioxidant properties of anthocyanins are maintained even after they are eaten by another organism. This is why fruits with bright pigmentation tend to have the great ORAC values – they are loaded with anthocyanins! Yes, you guessed it – Acai berries have a tremendous concentration of anthocyanins.

The French have a diet very rich in cheese, sugar, coffee, nicotine, sugar and white flour. With this type of diet you would expect the French to have a very high rate of heart disease, however, the exact opposite is true. The ability of the French to consume a heart clogging diet and yet have a very low rate of heart disease has been labeled the French Paradox.

Researchers now believe they have the reason for the “French Paradox” – anthocyanins! The French drink a significant amount of red wine and the the red wine grape, due to its anthocyanins is what is believed to be responsible for the very low incidence of heart disease. While red wine has a good quantity of anthocyanins, the Acai berry has over 30 times the anthocyanins as red wine.

Real Acai: Real Diet Goodness

If you want real acai berries then you will have to go to the Brazilian rain forest. Seriously. Once harvested the fruit degrades so quickly that distributors cannot get it out of Brazil without some pre-processing (or freezing) which turns it into a different product. If you’re really interested in getting as much acai as possible then you should move to the areas where they harvest the acai fruit: these people take in acai fruit comprising around 42% of their food by weight. Wow.

One of the better ways to get the acai to your grocery bag is with acai preserves. Acai preserves really are just what they sound like, and you would make them in same way that you would make strawberry or raspberry jam. And like with strawberries and raspberries, the more the better; so it is with acai preserves which contain up to 99% of their volume as acai fruit.

Pretty impressive by any standard, but phenomenal when you compare it to the alternatives which can be pills and powders said to contain acai. I would much rather have the real thing in front of me.

The good thing about the very simple way in which acai preserves are made is that the minimal processing means maximum retention of all the goodness and nutrients in the acai.

Why Won’t Ares Connect? Help Me!

I’m at my wits end trying to get Ares Galaxy to connect to the Ares network. I’ve tried everything I could think of, even a full reinstall of my system (which took up most of the day for my cousin who knows more about these things than I do).

Sometimes I turn on the system and Ares will connect after 10 minutes or so. Unfortunately a 10 minute wait is rather on the better end of this scale. At the other end is a wait often exceeding five or six hours. Not good for my nerves!

I even tried using a different client: I picked Ares Ultimate from the Official Ares website. It worked well for a while, and I liked it more than Ares Galaxy, but in the end I had the same connection problems. Oh why won’t Ares connect?

In my desperation, I started to search the web for various ways around this problem. Something I’ve come across is called AresConnect and it claims to solve the problem of I’m facing. Does anyone have any experience with this? Are there any alternatives?

Update: I took the plunge and installed AresConnect. It turns out this is a very good move, and Ares Galaxy connected almost instantly. It was to be true, so I turned off and restarted. Again, instant connection. This was definitely not what I was expecting! I’ll report back if anything changes, but for now it seems that the problem is solved. Yipeee!!

Acai Berry Rules! Say Oprah And Dr. Oz

If you’ve read anything at all about Acai, you’ve seen references to Oprah proclaiming the virtues of the Acai Berry. But it is actually pretty difficult to find any quotes or video of what she says. That’s because the scammers have been making all kinds of outrageous claims about Acai being some kind of miracle diet pill, and using Oprah’s name to try and lend credibility to these claims. So, Oprah’s lawyers have been VERY busing getting videos pulled from youtube. Above is a little bit of Oprah with Dr Perricone introducing the Acai Berry juice to her audience. Pretty skimpy stuff.

But there is a lot of buzz about Oprah shedding some light on the Acai scene on her “best life week” special runs Jan 5. The quote below is from her website talking about her struggles, and a little about the special. For the full hour by hour schedule of events for this week visit www.oprah.com

Oprah Winfrey opens up about her recent 40-pound weight gain and reveals intimate details about her struggle to stay in shape after being diagnosed with a thyroid problem in the January issue of O, The Oprah Magazine and in a special episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show airing Monday, January 5, 2009. Both kick off Oprah’s “Best Life Week” a multiplatform, company-wide event designed to help readers, viewers, listeners and online users confront the issues in their own lives and make a commitment to wake up and unlock their own personal happiness in 2009.

Acai Supplements: Quickly Gaining Popularity

The benefits of acai berry supplements re quickly gaining a foothold in many households where people want the benefits of acai without the hassle of having to integrate acai purees or acai preserves into their diets. Maybe people don’t like the taste of acai but still want the benefits: this is where acai berry supplements play their role, too.

The acai is a wonderful little fruit — often referred to as a berry but actually a drupe — that grows on the top of the acai palm in the Brazilian rain forest The acai grows in large bunches of between 900 and 700 berries, and is harvested by the local population. The local population know the value of acai and eat tremendous amounts of it: up to 42% of their total food intake by weight consists of acai.

Acai has a high fat content — that’s mono unsaturated fat: ‘good fat’ — and this means that it degrades very quickly one it has been picked. Getting an acai berry out of Brazil intact is a challenge in itself. To counter this problem distributors make great products like acai berry supplements. Acai supplements have the benefits, and are not only easy to transport across the world, but are also incredibly convenient for those using them once they get there.