Spending so many hours a week as an employee at the Vitamin Shoppe oftentimes gives me the time to read and research supplements and supplement ingredients.
The other day, following the request of a customer, I read about Acai – the popular drink with high antioxidant properties. I read something that made me continue my research about acai later on at home.
I’ve always enjoyed a huge mixed veggie salad. Even more when there are hearts of palm in it. Well, I just found out that one of the most common sources of hearts of palm (or palm hearts) is the acai palm trunk’s core.
I also found out that harvesting heats of palm has quickly and significantly decreased the population of this palm. Reading more on the internet revealed this: 1) Nowadays cultivating the acai palm for its fruit and juice is a lot more profitable business than killing it for the core of the trunk, known as hearts of palm; 2) There is another palm tree, which has been artificially cultivated especially for the harvesting of palm hearts.
Still, not knowing where the heats of palm are coming from is what worries me some. Being the eco conscious person that I am, I wouldn’t want to think of myself, even for a minute, as of a person, who contributes to the destruction, rather than the restoration of the earth’s eco systems.
So, next time I decide to enjoy a salad I will certainly make sure to find out how the common delicates was derived. If this is not possible, I will order a salad with no hearts of palm.
In case you don’t know about acai – it is one of the few fruits with extremely high ORAC value. ORAC stands for Oxygen Radical Absorption Capacity. It is a fruit (and fruit juice) with what we know more as very, very high antioxidant properties.