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Food for Life - Caribbean - Camu Camu

Camu Camu is a low-growing shrub found throughout the Amazon rain forests of Peru and Brazil. It produces a lemon sized, light orange to purplish red fruit with yellow pulp. This fruit is packed with more natural vitamin C than any other food source recorded on the planet, in addition to beta-carotene, potassium, calcium, iron, niacin, phosphorus, protein, serine, thiamin, leucine, and valine.

These powerful phytochemicals and amino acids have a surprising range of therapeutic effects. Camu Camu has astringent, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, emollient and nutritional properties.

Benefits of Camu Camu:

• Vitamin C - more than any other food! Camu Camu is full of vitamin C: 60 times more per serving than an orange! A teaspoon of camu camu powder has 1180 per cent of your recommended daily intake for vitamin C, which is important for gum health, among other functions in our body.

(1/2 teaspoon of powder provides more than 400% the Daily Value!)

• Strengthens immune system.

• High in anti-oxidants

• Balances Mood - effective and safe antidepressant.

• Supports optimal function of nervous system including eye and brain functions

• Provides arthritic protection by helping reduce inflammation.

• Anti-viral

• Anti-hepatitic - protects against liver disorders, including liver disease and liver cancer.

• Effective against all forms of the Herpes virus (i.e. Epstein-Barr, Mononucleosis, cold sores, etc.)

Camu Camu Powder is about 15% Vitamin C by weight. In comparison to oranges, camu camu provides 30-50 times more vitamin C, ten times more iron, three times more niacin, twice as much riboflavin, and 50% more phosphorus.

• Valine
Valine is an amino acid found in Camu Camu. It's an essential amino acid, meaning that we must get it in food because our bodies can't produce it. Valine is used by thebody to prevent muscle breakdown and is important for nervous system and cognitive function.

• Potassium
Our bodies need potassium for the proper functioning of the heart and kidneys. Camu Camu is one way to get it: 71.1 milligrams are found in every 100 grams.

• Leucine
This is another essential amino acid found in Camu Camu, one that our bodies need for muscle and bone tissue growth and recovery and the production of growth hormones.

• Serine
Another amino acid! This one is key for digestion: serine helps to break down the bonds in proteins and polypeptides so they can be used by our bodies.

• Flavonoids
Camu Camu has several different flavonoids, which are compounds that are found in plants and are part of what gives fruits and vegetables their awesome colours. They mostly function in the body as antioxidants, neutralizing harmful free radicals.

• Gallic Acid
Gallic acid is found in Camu Camu, which is good news because it appears to have anti-fungal and anti-viral properties. It also acts as an antioxidant.

• Ellagic Acid
This is another acid with antioxidant properties, found in Camu Camu. It's been studied for anti-cancer effects, though research is still very early. Some research also indicates that ellagic acid has anti-diabetes effects.

• Inflammation
In one study, 20 male smokers drank Camu Camu juice or took vitamin C tablets daily for a week. The group who took camu camu showed a decrease in some markers for antioxidants and oxidative stress at the end of the study, compared to no change for those who had vitamin C tablets.

Information sourced from www.purehealingfoods.com