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With summer in full swing, many people will be entertaining and feeding guests. After the delicious BBQ or other meal, many hosts will want to serve a dessert to end the meal on a sweet note. On these hot days and warm summer nights, many hosts will be thinking of cold desserts: ice-cream, sorbet, gelato, etc. These desserts are favorites of summer, and for good reason.
On the other hand, many guests are health conscious these days. People don't want empty, sugary or fat calories. Many hosts, in response to this are serving fruit based sorbets rather than more fattening ice cream. Sorbets are delicous, refreshing frozen fruit pulps. They are natural and nutritous. What could be better?
Well here is the tip. One of the latest heath trends it to increase the consumption of anti-oxidants. Anti-oxidants are compounds that occur naturally in many foods. Anti-oxidants have the capability to inhibit the damaging action of free radicals. Nutritionists tell us that a lot of cell damage is caused by the destructive action of free radicals, and they recommend eating 3000-5000 ORAC units per day (ORAC is Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity- a means of indexing the anti-oxidant capibility of foods).
One of the recent most popular high ORAC foods is the acai (pronounced "assa-hee") berry from Brazil. The acai berry has one of the highest ORAC scores of any fruit known to date, and beats pomegranate, blueberry, cranberry, etc. And acai has been popular in large Brazilian cities for almost 20 years, so the Brazilians know how to serve acai well. On of the most popular forms in Brazil is the acai bowl, which is basically frozen acai pulp mixed with guarana syrup (a common flavorant in Brazil made from the gurana fruit seed), and cane sugar. The resulting mixture is mainly acai pulp, and has a pleasant sorbet like texture and very nice berry flavor, similar, but distinct from blue-berry. Normally in Brazil , the acai bowl is served with sliced bananas and a sprinkle of granola.
Acai Roots, a company in San Diego run by Brazilians who were raised on acai bowls in Rio de Jainero, produces an excellent acai puree mixture [http://www.acai-berry.tv/acaipulp.html] in the style of the Brazilian acai bowl. As for cost, based on the 7.2 pound size (about 36 servings) priced in July 2008, the cost is 39.4 cents per ounce. One serving is considered 100 grams (about 3.4 ounces). I surveyed sorbets from netgrocers.com, and they ranged from 33.7 (Haagen Daaz raspberry) to 42.2 (Cia Bella Raspberry) cents per ounce. Frozen fruit purees of raspberry went from 43.1 cents per ounce to $1.42 per ounce on different websites!
Impress your health conscious guests by serving them acai bowls (acai sorbet). They will appreciate your thinking about their health, and for many, it will be their first chance to try acai.
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