Name: Acai Berries (frozen puree)
Brand: Sambazon
Place of Purchase: Wheatsfield Co-op in Ames, Iowa
Country/Region of Origin: Brasil
Price in Iowa: $6.99 for 14 oz.
Description: Indigo lint, frozen
Flavor: Woody and astringent.
Aroma: A flowery/rosy aroma.
Texture/Mouth-feel: It's probably not a fair assessment to judge texture based off of a frozen puree.
Notes: It's early January here in Iowa, and I looked all over town for new fresh fruits to try. Not a one. So, I started looking at juices (look for Libations of the Week until I can find some fresh fruit) and frozen fruits. I came across these acai puree packets for smoothie making. The flavor left a lot to be desired, but I used the broken puree-cicles as ice cubes in my iced tea, and they added a slight flowery tang to my tea. Just like the goji berries from last week, the reason to eat this fruit is for health. Freeze-dried acai has an ORAC value (Oxygen radical absorbance capacity) of over 100,000 (http://oracvalues.com). Goji berries only have an ORAC of 23,000. However, these values are misleading. There are a number of oxygen radicals in your body, all doing damage and aging you slowly, but acai does not reduce all of them. There is good evidence that acai has anti-inflammatory properties, but whether eating a tablespoon of this stuff a day is any better than drinking a (much cheaper) glass of wine or concord grape juice is up for debate. My suggesting is stick to whole foods (sure, frozen purees count) and avoid pills. The fruit will always outperform the extract.
Name: Acai Berries (frozen puree)
I love your blog here Tony, as a fellow foodie I have had a lot of the things on here, but a few like Tayberries and Sap Sago cheese I'm going to have to track down and try.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to make a case for soursop juice though, its got to be one of my favorite fruits and I ate it as often as i could get it when I was in Costa Rica and Brazil, I found it to be sort of an allspice of the fruit world, kind of a banana-pineapple with citrus notes and a buttery mouth feel.
I'm glad to see you liked Durian and Kasseri. I have only had the pleasure (luck?) of having Durian frozen but its fantastic and as far as Kasseri goes, well who doesn't like salty sharp cheese set ablaze?
Keep up the good work you have a lot of cool stuff in here.
Louie
Louie--
ReplyDeleteI think that my opinion of the soursop comes more from the canned product. I'll bet that the fresh fruit/juice is very different than the canned.
Thanks for reading!
Tony