Do you live in the Amazon Rainforest? Can you roll out of bed, shimmy up a 30 foot Acai Palm Tree and pick your own, fresh, organic Acai berries? Unless we have an incredible following in the Amazon, I am guessing this is not the case.

In this article we are going to look at how organic plants and fruits go from nature to a supplement…and all that can go wrong.

How to Make a Healthy Organic Fruit into a Useless Powder in 3 Easy Steps!

Let's pretend there is a supplement company called "Company for Harvesting Edible Acai Products" or CHEAP for short. CHEAP knows that consumers can not get fresh Acai in the USA, since the Acai berry goes rancid within 24 hours of being picked. So, CHEAP sees an opportunity to make some money by offering Acai in powdered supplement form.

Of course, CHEAP is not very concerned with making the best Organic Acai Supplement, they want to make the cheapest Organic Acai supplement, so they can make the most money. Here is how CHEAP might go about making their Organic Acai supplement in 3 easy steps…

1. Buy the cheapest Organic Acai Berries they can find on the Market

CHEAP is not going to worry about things like Fair Trade practices, when the Acai berries were picked, are the berries ripe and have the Acai berries been handled in a clean and safe manner. All CHEAP wants is some Acai Berries that are Organic, because they know people in the US will equate Organic with high quality.

2. Turn the Acai Berries into Powder As Cheaply As Possible

CHEAP needs to get the Organic Acai berries into powder form. As CHEAP is most concerned about turning a healthy profit, they will look for the cheapest ways to turn Organic Acai Berry into powder. They might use techniques like spray drying, heat drying or creating extracts to make an acai powder. Sure these techniques introduce high heat and kill off the majority of the nutrients in the fruit, but spray drying and extracts are much cheaper than freeze drying and using the whole food.

If CHEAP really wants to save money, they might not remove the Acai berry seed before creating the powder. About 90% of the Acai Berry is the seed. The seed is very low in nutrients as it is the acai pulp and skin which are packed with nutrients. However, if CHEAP includes the seed in their powder, they can make more Acai powder… Sure the Acai powder will have 90% less nutrients than powder made from just skinand pulp, but CHEAP doesn't really care.

3. Get the Acai Powder into Capsules Quickly

Now that CHEAP has their Acai powder, they need to get it into capsules and pills. CHEAP understands that they can use fillers and flow agents like magnesium stearate, rice and silica to get the Acai powder into supplements in a more inexpensive manner. Of course the fillers and flow agents have no benefit to the end user, but they keep cost down for CHEAP, so they use them.

Here is The Scary Thing – CHEAP Acai Sounds Good On Paper

When the CHEAP product comes to market they will say things like – "Direct from the Amazon, We Bring You The Finest Quality, Certified Organic Acai Berry. Organic Acai Berry has these health benefits…." Thisis the classic bait and switch –yes Organic Acai does have all the health benefits they list – BUT THEIR ORGANIC ACAI SUPPLEMENT DOES NOT! The way they processed the Organic Acai has stripped it of almost all its nutrients and health benefits.

By quickly looking at the bottle you do not realize all the corners they cut to make the Organic Acai as cheap as possible!

We Have Said It Before – Being An Organic Supplement is NOT Good Enough

In the above example we used Acai – but this happens with every ingredient in the world. You will always find companies who try to cut corners to save costs when turning an Organic fruit or plant into a powder.

At BOS, we work hard to make sure that any supplement that we recommend has been made with Organic ingredients that maintain the nutrients they had when growing in the wild. We look for Organic ingredients that have been freeze dried, made from the whole plant and harvested when ripe.

To learn more about how we test supplements to see if their Organic Ingredients are potent, please see our Be The Best Supplement Test.