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Berry is 'world's healthiest fruit'
United Kingdom
Friday 07 September 2007
First it was beetroot, then pomegranate, now a Brazilian berry believed to be the healthiest fruit of all has become the latest must-have nutritional ingredient.
Acai, a purple wonder-berry which has twice the cancer-beating antioxidants of blueberries, is already a fashionable food in the United States, where scientists recently found it destroyed four-fifths of cancer cells.
It has already built up a band of celebrity fans, including Oprah Winfrey, the Formula 1 racing driver Rubens Barrichello, tennis star Andre Agassi, the singer Sting and former model Gisele Bundchen.
Pronounced ah-sah-ee, the grape-sized berries will hit Scottish supermarket shelves in June when Waitrose opens its first stores north of the Border.
Currently, it is available only in freeze-dried form at specialist shops such as Brazilian Sensation in Edinburgh, which claims to be Britain's largest mail-order supplier of the wonder-berry.
"Acai is at the same point as coffee was ten years ago - just about to become really big," said John Falconer, the owner of Brazilian Sensation. "The number of orders is increasing daily as word spreads about the health benefits."
Acai, a purple wonder-berry which has twice the cancer-beating antioxidants of blueberries, is already a fashionable food in the United States, where scientists recently found it destroyed four-fifths of cancer cells.
It has already built up a band of celebrity fans, including Oprah Winfrey, the Formula 1 racing driver Rubens Barrichello, tennis star Andre Agassi, the singer Sting and former model Gisele Bundchen.
Pronounced ah-sah-ee, the grape-sized berries will hit Scottish supermarket shelves in June when Waitrose opens its first stores north of the Border.
Currently, it is available only in freeze-dried form at specialist shops such as Brazilian Sensation in Edinburgh, which claims to be Britain's largest mail-order supplier of the wonder-berry.
"Acai is at the same point as coffee was ten years ago - just about to become really big," said John Falconer, the owner of Brazilian Sensation. "The number of orders is increasing daily as word spreads about the health benefits."
