These berries pack a punch. Eating a handful of it regularly makes the skin glow, stops the aging process, prevents cancer and heart attacks and helps to reduce weight. It sounds so exuberant when a new fruit conquers the market. Once the promises were made for cranberries from America, today for fruits like goji or acai berries. Both are touted as a healing elixir and sold for up to 80 euros a bottle.
In particular, mail order companies on the Internet lure with offers of extracts as powder or pills for moreTolfioowity and fitness. Is the expense worth it? We took a closer look at four high-flyers.
Table of Contents
There is so much vitamin C in it
Each 100 g edible portion contains:
- Goji berries up to 150 mg
- Aronia berries up to 50 mg
- pomegranate seeds 7 mg
- Acai berries little
For comparison:
- Blackcurrants 170 mg
Exotic bonus, marketing and inner values
The orange-red goji berry is currently at the top of the list of super fruits with a power effect. The fruit celebrated as the “anti-aging berry” usually reaches us dried, sometimes covered with chocolate – and brings a hint of the millennia-old health science of Asia to the shopping basket: In traditional Chinese medicine, the goji berry is used to strengthen the immune system; their very high vitamin C content is said to increase the anti-inflammatory effect.
The acai berries cannot keep up with this in terms of content. The dark beauty from the Amazon region scores thanks to jungle exoticism and an international marketing strategy. Coming from the Brazilian windsurfing scene, it caught on as a sports drink and powder in the United States. Both are made from the pulp of special palm fruits, in addition to a lot of calcium, they contain 50 percent fat – similar to olives.
The pomegranate , on the other hand, contains a large number of healthy substances such as polyphenols – protected under the hard shell for months. This is why pomegranates used to be taken along as provisions when caravans traveled from Persia to India. Originally from North America, the aronia berry was cultivated in the Soviet Union for the production of vitamin tablets. The doctors there also recommended it for high blood pressure and hardening of the arteries. The chokeberry , a relative of the mountain ash, has an astonishingly high content of the “eye vitamin” A. It is now also cultivated in East Germany and Poland, and you can find dried berries or aronia juice on the market.
No competition for the old stars apple and pear
All four super fruits are also certified to have a high content of antioxidants, i.e. cell-protecting active ingredients. However, almost all studies are based on laboratory tests. In a Petri dish you can observe the antioxidant effect on a cell, but these findings cannot necessarily be transferred to humans.
“You can’t trace any plant substance exactly from the tongue via the stomach and intestines into the blood down to individual cells,” points out Prof. Bernhard Tauscher, an expert at the Federal Research Institute for Nutrition and Food (Max Rubner Institute). The biosystem is so complex that it would be dubious to attribute health effects to individual active ingredients. In addition, “the juices are rarely pure and it is questionable how many of the original vitamins are actually in the bottle,” says Prof. Tauscher. Overall, the “super fruits” do not perform better than apples or pears in comparison.
Variety and an inner smile – two good reasons
However : Aromatic compounds (polyphenols) have recently become the focus of science. They seem to play a central health-promoting role, but exact proof is still lacking. All four “superfruits” contain plenty of it as a bioactive substance. A certain psychological effect should also not be underestimated: the special aromas of the exotics remind us of holidays. That triggers positive feelings – just like a bit of variety on the plate.
SMALL PURCHASING GUIDE
Never be fooled by generic health promises. According to EU law, only specific information must be correct. With juices, pay attention to the actual fruit content; a special health effect could not be proven so far, but they do no harm either. If you like, buy the freshest fruit possible: ingredients are lost during drying. But the quality also suffers over long transport routes – the longer, the worse.
Acai berries : often very expensive! The ingredients don’t justify 80 euros for a bottle of juice. And just don’t order online, you can fall for the quality.
Aronia berries : never eat raw! The fruits contain hydrocyanic acid, which is only destroyed by heating. You can order plants for your own garden .
Pomegranate : The peel should have an intense color between yellow-orange and deep red. A metallic sound when knocked and a slightly open corolla indicate maturity.
Goji berries : Goods from China are often contaminated with pesticides. Therefore, only buy products of organic quality or from the health food store.
