Posted on July 16th, 2009 by Craig Maltby, Editor
Nutraceutical innovation keeps rolling; immune balance arrives at Costco
I was in my local Costco this past weekend. In the nutritional products section, newly arrived, were cases of a nutraceutical beverage
called Acai Immune Booster produced by AgroLabs. AgroLabs, according to its Web site, specializes in liquid nutrition products. Included in the product is a 500 mg daily dosage of EpiCor. From what I understand, this may be a first for EpiCor inclusion in a nationally distributed nutritional beverage.
Liquid nutrition appears to be gaining popularity; a trade journal serving the nutrition business sector pointed to data showing 15% growth in nutritional beverages in the U.S. market between 2003 and 2007, although a slight decline (0.1%) is estimated for 2008 data due to the wide-spread economic downturn.
These drinks are are also known as a “functional beverages.” Many functional beverages deliver the health ingredients and amounts one would find in a supplement pill, capsule or gel, but are easy to swallow for people who have difficulty taking pills.
The price for the Acai Immune Booster (with EpiCor added, they could even call it Immune Balancer!) was around $17.00. But you can’t compare it to Vitamin Water or Gatorade or other fortified beverages. Those are drinks that you slam down when you’re thirsty, knowing you get a little extra nutrient value when you do. The AgroLabs product, and others in that category, are formulated to be liquid supplements imparting a distinct health benefit, consumed in 1 or 2 shots per day. A bottle should last a month.
The acai berry, which is a core ingredient in this and many other products, has some interesting science behind it. A smaller study by a Texas A&M researcher published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry showed that the acai berry, in liquid and pulp form, is well absorbed into the human body. The study compared results of test subjects consuming those acai products with placebo preparations of applesauce and a non-antioxidant beverage.
“Both acai pulp and acai juice showed significant absorption of antioxidant anthocyanins into the blood and antioxidant effects, according to a third-party summary of the study. “Blood and urine samples at 12 and 24 hours after consumption showed significant increases in antioxidant activity in the blood after both the acai pulp and applesauce consumption.”
“Acai is naturally low in sugar, and the flavor is described as a mixture of red wine and chocolate,” said lead investigator Dr. Susanne Talcott, talking about the fruit in Science Daily.
OK, now I’m really gonna try it.
July 17th, 2009 at 2:13 am
Okay, I love this too: the flavor is described as a mixture of red wine and chocolate. Yum-yum :)
Who could resist that combination? Plus, you get tons of other health benefits too!
July 27th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
While the acai berry drink, even over-processed by the big food giants now, is still beneficial to health, the acai everything is ridiculous.
The real deal as as drunk in South America and in raw health food stores, cafés and restaurants does not taste like red wine and chocolate! And that’s at it’s strongest flavour.
The real acai berry is very low in sugar, and on its own as a drink, would not be interesting to the American public’s palate accustomed to over-processed foods; which is why the food companies are including extra additives.
However, since so many are having beneficial effects from it’s inclusion in foods, even at partial nutritional strength, it shows how unhealthy they were to begin with.
So that alone is a big plus.
July 28th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Well, Catherine, you’ve got a lot of thinking going on in this post. I like that, and I appreciate your writing.
I don’t dispute your account of the taste of raw acai berries. I’ve searched other sites and seen similar tales about the taste of the raw berry. I once went to a presentation by the marketing director of Ocean Spray. She had a small bottle of pure cranberry juice. Nothing added. She dared anyone to come up to the stage and drink it. She said that anyone who could stand drinking the cranberry juice would likely say it tastes like battery acid. Hence, Ocean Spray must sweeten its products in order to please consumers. I don’t think that necessarily diminishes the health benefits of the cranberry juice contained therein.
The AgroLabs product mentioned in my post is sweetened with other fruit and berry extracts. I know pear or white grape juice is widely used as sweeteners in many products. To me, that says the company is committed to making the product as nutritionally beneficial as possible. Unless I turn into a raw foods fanatic, that’s more than good enough for me. And I’ll bet you any dietitian would tell you that people who are in relatively good health can still benefit from healthy foods and beverages. Maybe that’s one reason they’re in good health to begin with.
June 10th, 2010 at 3:47 pm
This somehow reminds me of V8 and how V8 was supposed to be liquid tomatoes, or liquid vegetables. Now we have drinks that have all the vitamins, supplements, and nutrients that we are supposed to eat normally?
Hmm….well, it definately does sound decent, although I need to do research on what Acai actually is.