Acai bowls: where do they come from?

I’ve been to the US on holiday and discovered the holy grail of breakfast. Two words: acai bowls. If you’ve never heard of them before, don’t worry, you’ll be in love with them by the end of this post.

Acai bowls are colourful, healthy, varied smoothies usually topped by fresh fruit and seeds/nuts/spreads/granola. If you google them, you’ll be amazed by their increasing popularity. It’s no surprise that these refreshing meals have become so popular in the US, considering that California is home to the latest food trends (eg. unicorn food, matcha-based beverages, vegan options) that celebrities promote continuously.

When I first tried an acai bowl I loved it so much, that when I returned from my trip, I started making them at home too. Needless to say that they weren’t as yummy as those ones I tried abroad (they might add a secret ingredient that I haven’t discovered yet), but I was impressed that these smoothies could be varied endlessly without growing tired of them. I made acai bowls with my grandma as well and she was so surprised that something this simple could taste that good (she called them “healthy sorbets”)!

Since I loved these ‘smoothies’ so much, I decided to dig deeper and learn about their origins and how they grew into one of today’s latest healthy trends.

Acai bowls are called like this after the fruit acai, pronounced ah-sigh-ee. This fruit grows on palms in the Amazon and local people ate (and still do) it alongside main courses. These fruits are round shaped and look similar to blueberries as they have a purple external layer covering a large seed. To eat it, people climb the trees, bring down a bunch of these berries and put them in water. In fact, the fruit on the tree is not edible due to its firmness, so after being soaked it becomes soft enough to be consumed. The result is a purple puree and it’s so omnipresent in the local cuisine that a popular expression is “without acai, I’m still hungry”.

During the 1980s, Carlos Gracie, a Brazilian Jujitsu fighter, was probably the one who pushed the public to start using acai as an ingredient in delicious smoothies. He suffered from migraines and started educating himself about the relationship between food and overall health of the body. As a result, he created a diet (the ‘Gracie Diet’), which resulted in him being a better athlete. His son said that he was “a pioneer with his habit of eating acai, drinking watermelon juice, coconut water and smoothies”.

Since the 90s, the berry was also loved by Brazilian surfers and other athletes. At the beginning of the 21st century, its pulp started being shipped to the US where it quickly sold in states like Hawaii and California. The fresh berries though don’t last long, so they are sold worldwide as either frozen puree, powder or juice. When searching on Amazon for the fruit, it’s mostly sold as powder and it’s not that cheap, probably because they’re primarily grown in Brazil.

You might think: it’s a powder to add in smoothies, so what’s the big deal? Well, the fruit largely became popular in USA after Dr. Nicholas Perricone called it a “Superfood for Age-Defying Beauty” on Oprah’s Show. And, surprise surprise, he isn’t wrong.

Acai presents many phytochemicals which help our longevity and immune system. Moreover, the fruit can reduce cholesterol levels and has high concentration of antioxidants which help prevent several diseases (like diabetes, cancer, heart diseases). To support the claim that acai can reduce cholesterol levels, an experiment was conducted. 10 overweight individuals consumed 100gr of acai pulp twice a day for 30 days and this helped them reduce the risk of contracting a metabolic disease. The berry also contains protein, which helps build/repair muscle, and amino acids, which support our metabolism.

Now, if you’d like to try the endless benefits of acai, you can find some delicious recipes by clicking on the following link: https://www.chelseasmessyapron.com/acai-bowl/

Plus, if you’d like to read more about the benefits of the Brazilian fruit and the studies to support that, read this: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/benefits-of-acai-berries#section6