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How So Much Antioxidant Activity is a Benefit of Acai
Given that many fruits and vegetables are rich in polyphenols, anthocyanins
(which give the food its color), and tannins, why is Acai’s ORAC score so much
higher than the results for any other common food? Consider just why plants use up energy to produce antioxidant compounds in the first place and the answer becomes
glaringly obvious.
Plants use antioxidants to cope with oxidative stress. So, what kind of powerful stressors does an Acai palm endure, to give it such an unusually high antioxidant capacity? The Acai palm grows as high as the eye can see, all along the Amazon River and its tributaries, very close to the Equator. The only time this palm needs shade is during its juvenile stage. Once the Acai plant becomes more developed and bears fruit, it can then withstand the sun’s intense UV radiation.
As the Acai palm reaches its maximum height of 65 to 100 feet (20 to 30 meters), it becomes a member of the tropical forest’s canopy. The development of extraordinary antioxidant capacity is particularly seen in the lowlands, near rivers and their tributaries, and along Brazil’s coastal swamps. Prolonged seasonal flooding predictably occurs in swamps.
Normally, if one puts a food crop like corn under water for more than a few days, it will always die. A condition called anoxia, meaning a lack of oxygen, is responsible for these plants dying off so quickly. Anoxia is clearly a stressful condition, which can easily kill a plant when it happens for even a short time.
Unlike most plants that cannot survive in a state of anoxia for very long, the Acai palm can withstand weeks, even months of anoxia caused by flooding. It’s survival is possible because oxygen diffusion takes place from its leaves into the roots. The Acai palm has also developed the ability to synthesize energy in the form of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in its cells, even in the absence of oxygen.
In the Acai’s root system, aerobic respiration can occur at the same time that anaerobic metabolism occurs. Rice (another monocot type of plant) can do this too. That characteristic explains why rice does so well while submerged in paddies filled with water. Thus, the Acai is not just an ordinary palm, but one that has evolved over time to cope with all kinds of severe climatic, geologic and
environmental stresses, particularly anoxia caused by flooding.
Such resilient adaptation is not surprising, when one considers that it rains almost every day in the Amazon, often one or more inches at a time. How each stressor directly causes an increase in the production of antioxidant compounds by plants remains to be learned.
For example, an eggplant, which also has a very dark skin full of anthocyanins, shows very low antioxidant absorbance capacity, as seen by its low ORAC score. But the fruit of the Acai palm, which has a similarly dark skin and comparable anthocyanins, has an extraordinarily high antioxidant absorbance capacity, with a correspondingly
huge ORAC score.
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