Exotic juice health claims are pure pulp fiction

By Bryan Smith

updated 12:45 p.m. ET Nov. 15, 2009

They arrive early and join a line that stretches out like a Sunday morning communion queue: flip-flopped tourists in madras-print vestments, joggers ashine from their early-morning canters, locals burning off the fog of a few too many.

One after another, they belly up to the counter at the Rum Jungle Cafe in San Diego and plunk down $4.50 for an açai (ah-sigh-EE) smoothie or $6.50 for the house special: a bowl of chilled, mushy, raw açai topped with a handful of the purple berries, some granola and banana, and a drizzle of honey.

Why açai? I ask Bobby Hawke, a lean, tanned 27-year-old pharmaceutical sales rep with a sun-streaked brush of stylishly mussed hair. He thinks for a moment, glances at his girlfriend, and shrugs. "From what I hear, it's one of the best antioxidants you can buy." Hawke pauses, and then starts to grin. "I guess I don't really know all that much about it, other than it's refreshing, it's good for you, and it tastes good."

Jay Swain, a 22-year-old Web developer, says a buddy turned him on to açai as a hangover cure. Beyond that, he's heard something about healthy properties — antioxidants, too — though he's not sure where. Oprah maybe. Oh, wait. "I think they gave me the lowdown when I came by and asked what it was," he says. "They told me it's good for you," he says. Like Hawke, he smiles, a little uncertainly.

"It's a berry from the Amazon," Swain finally adds. "It's kind of like a gem; you have this fruit imported from a different country, it only grows on the Amazon river. It's special."

Last year, 53 new food and drink products containing the Brazilian berries with the funny name were introduced in the United States. Total sales of all things açai surged to $104 million — more than double the 2007 figure, according to the market analysis firm Spins. Not surprisingly, some of the beverage world's big players took notice: Pepsi-owned Naked Juice also sells açai blends, and Jamba Juice offers an açai concoction. But by far the top purveyor of the newest darling of the superfruit juice market is Sambazon, a company co-founded by Ryan Black.

Around the end of 1999, Black traveled to Brazil with his girlfriend and buddy Ed Nichols to celebrate the new millennium. The three were there to surf, but they also took some time to bum around and sample the local culture. That's when Black happened upon açai — and the long lines of people waiting to buy it.

"There was one little açai bar where we went every day for açai bowls," he recalls, "and I was, like, 'How many of these do you sell a day?' And the guy's, like, 'I don't know, 300?' "

The berry was purple. Black saw green.

Within a decade, açai was a star and Sambazon's annual sales had grown to a reported $25 million. Together, Ryan, his brother, Jeremy, and Nichols went from maneuvering açai into small juice bars in Southern California to claiming shelf space in 15,000 stores nationwide, including health-food behemoth Whole Foods. In the process they helped launch a phenomenon rivaling POM Wonderful, the pomegranate potion that became a sensation on the strength of claims that its arsenal of antioxidants was more powerful than that of blueberry juice and red wine. Sambazon, it turned out, could make a similar claim, and more: Its açai juice also contained omega-3 fatty acids, fiber, and even some protein.

In some ways, the whole thing seemed like a fluke, a stroke of luck borne of a surfer dude's chance trip and a berry that happened to be an honest-to-God health marvel.

In truth, what we're guzzling by the gallon is masterful marketing. Rather than being a "global wonderberry," açai might better be described as an overhyped jungle juice that's no better for your health than the average orange. Instead of the happy tale of the little berry that could, the açai phenomenon is really just the latest example of how time and time again we turn off our brains and open our wallets when we're presented with a bottle of exotic "superfruit" juice that's been packaged as some kind of shortcut to immortality.

In other words, we've been had.

Açai selling points
There's little doubt that açai offers nutritional benefits, as almost every fruit does. What is in question is its rep as a purple powerhouse that makes all other produce look like just so many still-life props.

First, the fats. One of the juice's unique selling points is that açai contains omega-3s, the fatty acids found in cold-water fish that may help reduce your risk of heart disease. And while it's true that there are few fruits with omega-3s hiding inside them, the amount in açai is hardly worth bragging about. You'd need to down almost 2 1/2 gallons of Sambazon açai juice to equal the amount of omega-3s in just one 3-ounce serving of salmon.

We approached Jeremy Black with our math. "Omega-3s are less than 1 percent of the fats found in açai," he acknowledges. "I don't think you'll find any reputable açai company that promotes a high concentration. The promotion is about omegas in general." That is, that açai contains a full complement of fatty acids, including omega-6s and omega-9s. The latter, in fact, is the real wonder of açai, says Sambazon co-founder Nichols. "It's quite rare to find omega-9 fatty acids in the fruits typically used in smoothies and other antioxidant beverages," he says.

So let's consider the omega-9s, a.k.a. oleic acid. They give açai a similar fatty-acid ratio to that found in heart-healthy olive oil, a fact Sambazon points out on its Web site. The good news: açai juice has more oleic acid than it has omega-3s. The bad news: That amount is almost invisible. It takes roughly six 8-ounce servings of Sambazon açai juice to net the same oleic acid content found in a single tablespoon of olive oil.

"We reference the ratio of olive oil so that consumers have an understanding of the healthy fat complex of the fruit," explains Black.

Another supposed açai advantage is its fiber: There's 1 gram in 8 ounces of Sambazon açai juice. Or to look at it another way, you can either drink a quart of juice, or eat a slice of 100 percent whole-wheat bread. The juice will set you back 600 calories, versus 100 for the bread.

Black concedes the point. "It would be pretty over the top if you could come in and say, 'this fruit juice has everything you need,' " he says. "It's not like we're saying 'don't eat bread.' " What they are saying, he insists, is that it's very unusual for a juice to contain a "decent quantity" of fiber plus these fats. "It's the synergy of all this stuff together that makes açai special."

You can bet the phrase "decent quantity" has never appeared in any Sambazon marketing. Or on the Web site of MonaVie, a company that uses multilevel marketing to sell its $40-a-bottle blend of açai and 18 other fruits, claiming to be one of the world's fastest-growing private companies.

"Marketers understand the power of buzzwords and they're doing everything they can to leverage them," says Peter Ditto, Ph. D., a psychology professor at the University of California at Irvine, who examines the role of motivation and emotion in decision making. "Whether there's any conclusive science to back them up almost becomes irrelevant."

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