Acai History

The History of Acai

The Acai tree’s earliest history predates writing in the Amazonian region, so it is impossible to trace how long humans have known about this amazing berry. However the origins of it are known to the natives, although a bit engulfed in folklore.  

They call it “içá-çai”, which is best translated as the: “fruit that cries”. This has nothing to do with it making any sort of noise (which it doesn’t) and everything to do with a beautiful tale they tell of an ancient king who had a tough choice to make.

(The following story is a rough translation of Brazilian folklore. Our advanced apologies to those who’s feet we’ve stepped on translating it!)

Once upon a time, in the heart of the rainforest, there was a great tribal chief whose people were starving like never before. They were great hunters who were too good at their job and had simply run out of animals to hunt.

The famine was so bad that this king decreed that the entire tribe must not make any more children until food supplies were stable again. The penalty for having a child, sadly enough, would be killing it!

Naturally, the chief’s own daughter, a lovely girl named Iaçá, couldn’t hold out long enough and had a baby herself. Not wanting to appear two-faced, the chief was forced to have his own grandbaby killed.   

Iaçá was devastated. She mourned her child’s death alone for weeks in her hut. Then one day she heard what sounded like her baby crying out in the woods. She followed the sound deep into the Jungle, and after a long time she located the source of the sound… It was coming from a tall palm tree, covered in purple fruit.

She tried some fruit and it was delicious. It made her feel strong. But then she realized that there was so much fruit here that it will end her father’s curse and could have saved her daughter! This was too much for Iaçá, and as legend has it, she died right there against the trunk of the tree.

The following day her body was found against the new palm tree. The fruit it held satisfied the tribe’s hunger and renewed their energy, allowing them to be stronger than ever before!

Naturally, the chief lifted his harsh ruling immediately and decided that the fruit would be named after his daughter. He then named it Acai, because acai is “Iaca” spelled backwards.

To this day the tribes in that region still eat Acai as the Primary food in their diet.

It is very interesting to note that very, very few of the native Amazonian tribes from before Columbus had survived in South America… Mostly all of them were wiped out, not by conquistadors, but by European germs.

-Not those who lived on a diet of Acai berries, however. They seemed completely unaffected. This would seem to prove that the high Antioxidant content in Acai was already boosting immune systems to handle unprecedented viral attacks.

Skipping forward to our modern times, Acai has already been eaten daily since the 1980s by people across Brazil. In Rio de Janeiro, mostly all restaurants that server breakfast include a house special bowl of frozen acai. (What we call a “Rio bowl.”)

Across Brazil and even in some of the bordering countries, a cold bowl of Acai is usually always eaten in the morning for breakfast. They give you the energy to face your day like not even coffee can, and they taste great to boot.

By the mid 1950’s, Amazonian doctors began to notice the health benefits of Acai. Sadly they were not able to convince the outside world yet, especially since they had not invested a freeze-frying process so they could retain the berry’s nutrients in order to ship it anywhere else.
By the early 1980’s, trucks with refrigerators were able to get the first frozen berries from the rainforest to Rio, where it has flourished as a very popular smoothie, ice-cream, and even cocktail ingredient ever since.

Not until recently, since late 2000, have a handful of fledgling start-up export companies attempted to bring Acai to the USA and a few other countries. One of the first such companies was Sambazon, and they are still to this day the largest supplier of Acai berry pulp outside of Brazil.

Only since Acai started showing up in grocery stores across the country, medical studies have finally started to pop up and researchers are finding out about all of the exciting health benefits of Acai. It’s an exciting time to be alive.

A Washington state nutritional researcher, Dr. Andrew Schauss, was the first to perform an ORAC analysis on the Acai Berry. He has since inspired many other doctors and scientists to run their own lab tests. It is slow going because of the highly-perishable nature of Acai, but every few months you’ll see a news story about it regardless.

What’s the future hold for Acai? That completely depends on our ability to find better processes to preserve its’ nutrients. If no more advances are made in that arena, the sad fact is that people would have to live in Amazonia themselves to fully make use of Acai.

Until we do so, you can expect to see cancer treatment centers pop up down there along with other disease and disorder treatment centers. Since Acai cannot be grown elsewhere, (and still retain its antioxidant capacity) nor can it be preserved well enough to travel, it is a sad fact that the small crop in northern Brazil will long be fought over by the whole world.

You can expect the price of Acai to keep going up, pretty much forever.