The Sun reports:

With reputed weight-loss and anti-ageing benefits, this miracle juice from the Maldives is packed with powerful antioxidants and vitmain C.

But it’s not the only juice which claims to be body-boosting.

Acai, pomegranate and goji berry drinks have also made the health headlines recently.

But do these expensive drinks live up to their reputation or will drinking them be fruitless?

[snip]

Acai is an all-natural energy fruit from the Amazon rainforests, which tastes like a blend of berries and chocolate.

AMANDA SAYS: Acai berries are rich in B vitamins, minerals, fibre, protein and omega-3 fatty acids.

The antioxidants are great to help combat premature aging, with 10-30 times the purple colored antioxidants of red wine.

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It may be the hottest health product on the market. Mona Vie is a fruit juice that promises to ease pain, boost energy and improve overall health. And even though it’s $45 a bottle, it’s still selling like crazy.For Clyde and Donna Huffman, looking younger and living longer means working out on a regular schedule. But it also includes something - Mona Vie fruit juice.

“When you’re 69-years-old and about to be 70, you have aches and pains. They come with age, now I have energy abounding,” said Donna Huffman. “I’d like to look younger, live longer and I want to be as healthy as I can.”

Mona Vie is made up of 19 fruit juices. But its star ingredient is the acai berry, plucked straight from the rain forests of Brazil.

“It’s the best the world has to offer in fruit,” said Shelly Aristizabal, a top distributor for Mona Vie. “It’s being taken to market through independent distributors.”

She went from being a stay-at-home-mom to making hundreds of thousands of dollars in less than two years.

“If you can do something you believe in and you’re passionate about, and you can share it with everyone and get amazing amounts of money to do it, it’s the perfect business model,” said Aristizabal.

Doctor Fred Liebowitz has a pain management practice in Fort Myers. For him, it’s about making his patients feel better with fewer drugs.

“It’s doesn’t claim to cure disease. It’s basically good nutrition that most people should be taking on a daily basis,” said Dr. Liebowitz.

Click here to watch the video and read full report.

To learn more about monavie, click here.

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Today’s latest philosophy in anti-aging has less to do with needles and creams and more to do with what you eat for dinner. “The creams and lotions and potions you put on top of your face mean nothing if you’re not eating well” says Harvard-trained dermatologist and cosmetic surgeon Carolyn Jacob in a Seattle Times report.

Processed foods in the typical American diet show on our faces: inflammation and oxidation from sugar, flour and trans fats cause the breakdown of tissue and destroy cells (a.k.a. wrinkles).

Foods with antioxidants as well as foods with anti-inflammatory properties are the key to preserving a youthful appearance, says Jacob. Refined sugar and flour and trans-fats are all examples of inflammatory foods.

Studies show that antioxidants combat oxidation and inflammation, something we have all grown to understand in recent years and typically associate with disease prevention. Given that the skin is the body’s largest organ, it’s a logical leap to apply this research to the lucrative beauty market.

Indeed, supplements (or “ingestibles”) are the latest niche in the 45-billion dollar cosmetic and skin care industries, not to mention the world’s most respected skin docs flooding book shelves with eat-to-look-young books and appearing on Oprah.

Top antioxidant and anti-inflammatory foods include the “superfruits” such as pomegranete, cranberry, blueberry and acai berry as well as spinach, kale, cocoa beans, salmon, seaweed, green tea, flax seed oil, raw almonds name a few.

So, sure it’s possible to get these “ingestibles” from our diet, but it appears that the cosmetics industry is banking on the fact that we won’t. A recent trip to my supermarket to find healthy ingredients for my sunday supper tells me that it might be a challenge even if I wanted to.

Doctors and nutritionists say even people who make a point of eating a diet rich in healthy, unprocessed foods don’t get all the nutrients they need. Whether it’s food processing, a time lag from harvesting to getting produce to the table or the environment we live in, doctors say it’s easy to miss out on vitamins. Vitamins and supplements, write Oz and Roizen, “are an insurance policy for an imperfect diet.”

Source: Seattle Times

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The Globe and Mail reports that Lyle Overbay of the Tornoto Blue Jays is the latest professional athlete to use MonaVie to ease discomfort and enhance performance.

Lyle Overbay got some extra work in the batting cage and said Saturday that he has not experienced any uncomfortable vibrations in his right hand during batting practice so far - an area of concern for him heading into spring training …

“Had a glass this morning and felt like running to the ballpark,” John McDonald said, winking.

*wink*

Now also a MonaVie distributor, Overbay has introduced MonaVie to the team, who are described as “willing customers”.

Read the full article.

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Blueberries and bananas and chocolate, oh my! Visit best selling vegan cookbook author Dreena Burton’s blog at Dreena’s Vegan Recipes for the scoop. And while you’re there, check out her Raw Acai Berry Pie. MMMM!!

Enjoy!

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Kansas City Chiefs tight end Tony Gonzales uses vegan recipes and homemade fruit smoothies to stay in tip-top shape. In this video, Tony walks you through the benefits of the various superfruit that he eats to stay healthy and reduce inflammation naturally, making special mention of the Acai berry.

Other athletes are turning to the juice to enhance performance and to reduce their aches and pains upon retirement.

“After a nice College career, I hit the big league - the NFL. I even had the opportunity to play in six NFL Pro Bowl games. But like many former players, I’ve experienced ongoing aches and pains, constant reminders of the gridiron glory days. I started drinking MonaVie and it’s really helped. I love it.”

– Deron Cherry

Most recently, Rodney Harrison was spotted on NFL.com with a bottle of MonaVie active in his locker. Click here to view his interview with Marshall Faulk.

We’ll be keeping our eyes peeled for more NFL superfruit users; drop us a tip at info @ superfoodsuperstar.com if you have a hot scoop for us!

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I’d like to invite you to lunch, today. On the menu? A nice spring mix salad with broccoli and red grapes topped with the most delicious salad dressing I’ve ever tasted, chuck full of antioxidants, omega 3 essential fatty acids and mmm, mmmm flavor.

Recipe - (Serves 1-2)
2 oz MonaVie
1.5 oz Apple Cider Vinegar (or to taste)
1.5 oz. Flax Seed Oil

Pour all ingredients into a martini shaker or empty container, add a dash or two of organic black pepper and shake. Serve over your favorite salad (adding seeds and dried cranberries is to die for).

Enjoy!

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Yesterday we talked about how Flavonoids help brain function and could help prevent cognitive decline as we age.

But what is a flavonoid anyway? Flavonoids are a class of antioxidants. (So many different ways to say “antioxidant” these days, sheesh!)

The worlds number one superfruit, the Açai berry, contains the following flavonoids:

Catechin and epi-catechin
Also found in green tea, chocolate, grapes, berries and apples.
Kaempferol
Also found in onions, scallions, kale, broccoli, berries and tea.
Eriodictyol and erodictyol-7-glucoside
Also found in citrus fruits.
Luteolin
Also found in parsley, celery, chili peppers, sweet pepper, beets, Brussel sprouts, cabbage and cauliflower.
Luteolin-4-glucoside
Also found in artichokes and olives.
Chrysoeriol
Also found in rooibos tea, alfalfa, and sweet peppers.
Eupatorin
Also found in numerous therapeutic herbs.
Quercetin-3-arabinoside
Also found in fennel seed and eucalyptus leaf.
Isoquercitin
Also found in cherries, onions, elderflower, nettles, St. John’s wort, and numerous other therapeutic herbs.

No wonder it’s called a superfood, eh?

For more information on Flavonoids, see:

Wikipedia
World’s Healthiest Foods
And the Oregon State study on the topic, which you’ve gotta love because they conclude, “there are unique flavonoids in hops and beer that may be potentially useful in the prevention of human disease attributed to free radical damage.”

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According to Real Age, fruit may help keep your brain in tip top shape as you get older. Fruit eaters score high when tested for verbal fluency, logical reasoning, and visual memory.

The reason for fruit’s brain-boosting effect? It’s all about the flavonoids, those amazing antioxidants that fight disease and might be one of your best defenses against cognitive decline.

Sneaking more fruit into your diet is one way to load up on flavonoids, but vegetables like onions and broccoli provide some, too. You’ll need a wide variety of fruit and veggies in your diet to get the RealAge-recommended 31 milligrams of flavonoids per day.

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Unless you’ve been living under a rock the last couple of years, you know by now that antioxidants fight free radicals which cause disease and premature aging. Fruits and vegetables (and many brands of face creams too apparently) are rich in antioxidants and the vast majority of us need to eat a whole lot more of them. (Have you eaten your USDA recommended 7-11 servings of fruits and veggies today?)

But did you know that juicing is not just a fad invented by Jack LaLane so he could sell us his clunkly countertop machinery? Juicing is a long tradition for health nuts who know that although eating fruits and vegetables in their natural state does provide us with a substantial amount of vitamins and minerals, we only obtain the maximum benefits from them when they are juiced.

Now there’s one more reason to to incorporate juice into your daily routine - drinking fruit or vegetable juice no less than three times per week could cut your risk of Alzheimer’s by 75% according to a study published in The American Journal of Medicine (Vol. 119, pp. 751-759).

The results suggest that it is not the antioxidant vitamins (vitamins C, E and beta-carotene) but the antioxidant polyphenols that are behind the effects.

Although the mechanism of Alzheimer’s is not clear, more support is gathering for the build-up of plaque from beta-amyloid deposits. The deposits are associated with an increase in brain cell damage and death from oxidative stress. It is against the oxidative stress that the polyphenols appear to offer protection.

The benefit of the juice consumption also appeared enhanced in subjects who carried the apolipoprotein E epsilon-4 allele, a genetic marker linked to late-onset Alzheimer’s disease - the most common form of the disease, which typically occurs after the age of 65.

In other words, if the disease runs in your family, drinking juice is worth your time and money.

Harriet Millward, deputy chief executive of the Alzheimer’s Research Trust had this to say: “Many scientists believe there is a link between the release of free radicals within the body and early changes to brain cells in people who ultimately go on to develop Alzheimer’s disease. Since fruit and vegetable juices are rich in antioxidants which ‘mop up’ free radicals, this interesting piece of research adds weight to this theory.

Diet almost certainly plays a part in every person’s Alzheimer’s risk - and diet is a magnet for research because it could offer a relatively inexpensive way to fight a disease that ruins countless lives and costs the NHS more than cancer, stroke and heart disease put together.”

Nutrition experts have long looked to fruits and vegetables as a potential powerhouse for fighting ailments ranging from Alzheimer’s disease to cancer. More than 4,000 natural substances in fruits and vegetables have been identified as potential disease fighters, and more may still be discovered.

In the current study, researchers saw particular potential benefits from polyphenols, one of several groups of natural pigments that give fruits and vegetables their rainbow of colors. Polyphenols are found in many fruits and vegetables, particularly in the peels, and are particularly rich in green tea. They are potent antioxidants—some are even more powerful than vitamins C and E in fighting the cell-damaging effects caused by unstable free radicals. In the current study, the researchers found no relationship between consuming foods high in vitamins C and E or beta carotene and the risk for Alzheimer’s disease.

There are many juice products on the market today that seem to offer the convenience of getting these polyphenols into our diet three times per week. But one of the problems is that often times, their valuable nutrients are lost during the bottling process. Those most valuable parts of the foods (stems, skins, seeds, essential fatty acids) are clarified to make it look more appealing.

I don’t know about you, but I’ll drink ugly juice if it means I get me more of those polyphenols.

Another problem with juices readily available in the grocery store are added sugars, preservatives and flavors. The extra sugar means extra empty calories which may cause more harm than good.

The best way to juice is make your own using a wide variety of whole, natural, organic or wild fruits and vegetables. However, most of us don’t have the time to run to our farmer’s market each week and manage the volume and variety of produce required to get all of these valuable phytonutrients.

Enter the new trend for functional beverages, such as MonaVie, where high quality whole food juices are made from “super fruits” and all of the nutrients are retained through proprietary processing methods. And because customers are able to sign up for autoship, drinking juice daily becomes extremely convenient and habitual.

A representative from MonaVie had this to say about the value of drinking a wide variety of fruit from the full spectrum of colors:

Please remember that it is the phytonutrients that are what makes the MonaVie juice so valuable. Phytonutrients arenutrients concentrated in the skins of many vegetables and fruits, and are responsible for their color, hue, scent, and flavor. To a lesser extent, they are also found in grains and seeds.

People sometimes mistakenly believe phytonutrients are vitamins and/or minerals. In fact, they are pigments, or more precisely, the biologically active constituents of pigments. How can they benefit you? In the last few years, phytonutrients have been getting greater attention, as more and more research uncovers just how powerful these nutrients are for our health. They are potent antioxidants that can neutralize free radical damage. Free radicals are highly reactive chemical substances that, if left unchecked, can lead to premature aging and poor health.

Clinical trials are now revealing that phytonutrients can enhance the strength of the immune system, and may play a role in promoting good health and longevity. Other studies have shown that the phytonutrients in blueberries and bilberries slow brain aging and maintain healthy vision in vivo.

It has long been known that plant-based nutrients are among the most beneficial of foods to consume a great deal of and phytonutrients may hold the key to explaining why this is so.

MonaVie is a blend of fruits which have been chosen for their nutritional content. Açai, our star ingredient, is one of the world’s most powerful antioxidants. The benefits of antioxidants have been documented thousands of times over, but these benefits cannot be added to a nutritional facts or supplemental facts panel.

Now go on out there and drink a rainbow today!

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