Acai (ah-sigh-ee) is a small purple berry from the Brazilian Amazon that has been found to be one of the most nutritious and powerful foods on the planet – jam packed with antioxidants, healthy omega fats, amino acids and dietary fiber.
Ancient Acai - the purple berry with an energy punch has been enjoyed and used as a subsistence food by the natives of the Amazon region for millennia. But it is only now beginning to become known to the American consumer, looking for ways to slow the aging process and maintain vibrant health.
Amazonian acai is establishing itself as an important superfood - gaining popularity with the healthconscious crowd.
Antioxidants help the body get rid of free radicals. The body produces free radicals when it digests food, metabolizes medicine and fights disease, so they are necessary parts of the human condition, but a buildup can damage the body. Antioxidants are credited with preventing coronary artery disease, some cancers, macular degeneration, Alzheimer's disease, and some arthritis-related conditions. according to WebMD.com.
Pomegranates, blueberries -- even wine, chocolate and coffee -- contain high levels of antioxidants. The U.S. Department of Agriculture measures those levels with something called an ORAC score -- Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity.
Acai berries have nearly eight times higher ORAC scores than pomegranate, which is near the top of published charts.
Read more here:
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Monday, November 1, 2010
Corn Syrup -- More High Fructose Than We Thought?
More and more food companies are catching on - have you seen the "contains no high fructose corn syrup" on food labels? There is good reason for this.
Here is a recent news article:
For years, nutritionists and industry officials alike have considered the merits of high-fructose corn syrup with one key fact in mind: At a chemical level, it has nearly equal levels of fructose and glucose.
As it turns out, that may not be true after all.
A new study published in the journal Obesity measured the amounts of different types of sugars in 23 kinds of drinks sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup. And they found that several brands contained corn syrup made up of 65 percent fructose, not 55 percent, which has been the commonly cited statistic until now. The average percentage of fructose in the drinks is 59.
Because fructose has been proved to be worse for your health than glucose, these findings will likely only further damage the already faltering brand of high-fructose corn syrup, which the Corn Refiners Association has attempted to rescue with a series of television ads and a name change to "corn sugar."
Several experts, however, including but not limited to the Corn Refiners Association, have pointed out serious problems with the "obesity" study, suggesting that more samples were required and that the very high-fructose drinks could have been mixed differently at a stage in their process that does not reflect on HFCS generally.
Read more at Foodpolitics.com
Here is a recent news article:
For years, nutritionists and industry officials alike have considered the merits of high-fructose corn syrup with one key fact in mind: At a chemical level, it has nearly equal levels of fructose and glucose.
As it turns out, that may not be true after all.
A new study published in the journal Obesity measured the amounts of different types of sugars in 23 kinds of drinks sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup. And they found that several brands contained corn syrup made up of 65 percent fructose, not 55 percent, which has been the commonly cited statistic until now. The average percentage of fructose in the drinks is 59.
Because fructose has been proved to be worse for your health than glucose, these findings will likely only further damage the already faltering brand of high-fructose corn syrup, which the Corn Refiners Association has attempted to rescue with a series of television ads and a name change to "corn sugar."
Several experts, however, including but not limited to the Corn Refiners Association, have pointed out serious problems with the "obesity" study, suggesting that more samples were required and that the very high-fructose drinks could have been mixed differently at a stage in their process that does not reflect on HFCS generally.
Read more at Foodpolitics.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
