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Berry Radical Health Benefits
WARNING
Dubious Marketing Practices:
In recent times, due to more scientific research showing that
phyto-nutrients have excellent health benefits, a new
antioxidant fruit
drink demand in the USA and several other countries has sprung up. Largely
due to slick
marketing campaigns surrounding a number of significant product launches for
exotic fruits such as acai, goji, mangosteen, noni and a number
of others, it seems that the US is in the grip of an
"antioxidant fruit drink craze" touting the latest
antioxidant fruit as the new, wonder fruit that is going to save
the world from degenerative diseases.
Some of the claims being made for antioxidant fruit drinks are quite extraordinary ...
including weight loss and the lowering of cholesterol and curing of cancer.
The following extract about the "wonder fruit acai" is from the chicagoreader.com website Tuesday April
19th 2011
Acai Berry Marketers Accused of Fraud
Posted by Alex Parker on Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 3:24 PM Back to Top
" Lose Weight Fast? As diet gurus will tell you, there’s no quick fix.
And that pretty reporter and her stories on the health benefits of the acai
berry are part of a wide-ranging scam that's been bilking consumers for
years, according to the federal government. The Federal Trade Commission is
cracking down on those ubiquitous advertisements featuring an attractive
reporter (often the borrowed image of French TV anchor Melissa Theuriau)
expounding on the alleged health benefits of acai berries. Today, it filed a
lawsuit against ten operators of fake news sites that use the logos of news
organizations, such as ABC, CBS, and USA Today, using them to legitimize
practices that the FTC says “deceptively (entices) consumers to buy the
featured acai berry weight-loss products from other merchants.”
Dubiously, claimed antioxidant rich exotic health juices, are joining those now relatively
common plant products that have produced the most millionaires in the United
States MLM/network marketing fraternity, Acai
Aloe Vera,
Mangosteen Goji and
Noni. Thanks to the increasing name recognition of
many of these antioxidant rich fruits and to the lack of standardized
testing methods to determine the quality and amount of active ingredient,
greedy suppliers, brokers and manufacturers frequently stretch small amounts
of genuine antioxidant rich fruit extract or powder to literally make tens or even hundreds
of litres or kilos of finished antioxidant health drink out of just one
fruit alone, thereby, reaping substantial and outrageous
profits. The taste of the "health" juice or drink you experience could well
be mainly due to citric acid and artificial flavours added during
the manufacturing process of the antioxidant drink.
This type of marketing strategy isn't new however. It's a direct result
of other "exotic" fruit products like
Goji,
Noni and
Mangosteen, netting billions in U.S. sales through direct marketing and
retail sales, playing on the exotic flair of some reasonably common tropical
fruit that wasn't previously well known in the US and other western
countries. Since Noni's profitable
appearance in the U.S. market several years ago, many enterprising companies
have been searching for the next and newest (highly profitable) noni-replacement
from "exotic" tropical fruits.
To further compound the situation, most of the health drinks made from
"wild
berry" for commercial exploitation, are reconstituted from the berry concentrate,
thereby destroying much of the inherent beneficial nature of the berry due
to pasteurization and the manufacturing processes the ingredients go
through. Often flavours and preservatives,
sodium benzoate/benzoic acid are added to allow the product to
keep for indefinite periods which may cause their own problems due to the
formation of
carcinogenic benzene in hot bottled preparations. More modern cold
bottling as carried out by better manufacturers does not create the same
environment for benzene to form. However, if the product becomes hot at
anytime during transport or storage, it is possible and indeed, a very
probable risk, that benzene will be formed in the antioxidant formula.
Oftentimes actual mgs of active ingredients, anthocyanins,
polyphenols, catechin, epicatechin,
punicalagins, ellagic acid
magnesium etc,
in a whole bottle of liquid antioxidant health juice may be far less than what the
average person would consume by eating 20 or 30 red grapes. However, there
is something far worse that you should be aware of. Before consuming
hyped up so-called antioxidant liquid health drinks, you need to be sure that the manufacturing process
hasn't resulted in the formation of benzene.
A reputable company using cold
bottling techniques should be able to supply independent lab test results to
verify their product is benzene free or at least under the acceptable
official guidelines for benzene contamination in health drinks. If you
are already consuming a liquid antioxidant formula make sure you ask the
company for written documentation that their product has been certified free
of benzene!
The Health-Report team, have looked thoroughly into many of the
so-called wonder products out there and have come to the conclusion that
most are not worth paying anything for as far as antioxidant health benefits are
concerned. As mentioned above, you may as well eat a few dozen red
grapes or perhaps black currants, or blackberries each day as pay for an exorbitantly
priced bottle of antioxidant fruit juice drink, which will have little or no effect on
your health.
Having said that, some manufacturers that supply
freeze dried
powder concentrate have been able to maintain the integrity of the original
fruit. Freeze drying means the manufacturing process does not
interfere with the good properties nor does it involve destructive pasteurization
and preservatives to be added for liquid "health" formulas to ensure they keep for long periods.
Not all dried antioxidant formulas are created equal however. The
CERTIFIED ORGANIC freeze dried product we recommend at the Health-Report
site is easily the best we have ever encountered... One serving contains
over 4000 ORAC
units. A months supply, is equal to 123,375 ORAC units. To get
the equivalent amount of ORAC units from other foods, you would have to buy
the approximate quantity of the following foods or supplements - 5 kilos of
blueberries - 24 bottles of Noni juice 8 kilos of raspberries - 10 bottles
of Goji juice - 10 kilos of strawberries - 7 bottles of Mangosteen juice.
As you can see, the ORAC score for Berry Radical easily exceeds the recommended level
of 2000 to 3000 ORAC units per day we are advised to consume by
nutritionists.
Supplying yourself with quality "anti-aging" anti-oxidants along with a
healthy diet, is your first and best line of prevention against metabolic
diseases such as cancer and heart disease as well as preventing the onset of
premature aging.
Ask us
where to buy the Certified Organic Berry Radical
antioxidant formula in your country.
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