Acai 101

Where the world of Acai begins, picked from a palm tree in the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest

Backyard Bowls is most known for serving Acai Bowls.  In fact, I can say fairly confidently that we serve the best Acai Bowls in North America.  Well over half of our customers are coming in search of an Acai Bowl.  Obviously, this little berry called Acai is fairly important in our business.  So, what's the deal?  What makes this little fruit so special?  Is it really that healthy?  Where does it come from?  Why is it frozen?  Will it get me high?  Can I lose 10 lbs of belly fat by eating it?  Read on my friends, all will be clear soon.

BYB Co-founder Pete, daring you to mess with HIS Acai!

The Basics

Acai (say Ah-sigh-EE) is a small purple berry that grows on a palm tree found primarily in the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest.  Though to be honest, Acai is nothing like any berry you are thinking of- it is not sweet at all, it is primarily pit with just a thin layer of edible flesh, and therefore hardly ever consumed in its raw form.  Very quickly after harvest the Acai berries have the flesh stripped off, and the resulting pulp is processed into the myriad forms you find today- frozen pulp packets (as found at BYB), juice, ice cream, powders, pills, beauty products, and even liquor.  Whatever form Acai will end up at, it must happen within a couple days of harvest due to the fact that the berry has almost zero natural sugar and therefore spoils quickly (another reason you will never find raw Acai in America).

Acai is almost always sweetened in one way or another before it's consumed- even in Brazil- whether by adding a sweetener, or blending it with other fruits.  Unsweetened Acai is actually quite bland, but by adding just a touch of sweetness the Acai's natural rich berry-cocoa flavor is greatly enhanced.  BYB uses a lightly sweetened frozen pulp in most of its bowls, though even with the bit of added sugar it is actually less sweet than most common fruits we are used to here in California (we also offer a "pure" unsweetened Acai upon request).  BYB's Acai is manufactured by Sambazon, far and away the world's gold standard Acai producer.

Acai is a berry- a particularly healthy berry- but not a magic pill...

Health

Acai became famous a number of years ago for being an exceptionally healthy food.  Most notably, Acai has one of the highest antioxidant levels of any natural food on our planet.  It also boasts healthy omega fatty acids, and is packed with vitamins and minerals.  A simple internet search will lead you to endless claims about the nutritional benefits of Acai.  It's indisputable that Acai is a nutritionally packed food, but I must say that many people get carried away.  Will an Acai pill help you lose 10lbs of belly fat?  No.  Will a shot glass of fruit juice with a bit of Acai in it cure all your ailments?  Definitely not.  Will Acai make you "feel younger, enjoy boundless energy, and increase sexual performance"??  Come on.  Seriously?

Now don't get me wrong- I LOVE Acai.  I've eaten a bowl more days than not for the last 5 years.  I've been living and breathing Acai, and have nothing but amazing things to say about the effects its had on me.  I firmly believe Acai is an EXCELLENT complement to a healthy diet, and to a healthy lifestyle.  Especially the way that we serve Acai at BYB- blended with other whole fruits or veggies, topped with organic granola, more fresh fruits, and a touch of raw local honey- this is absolutely a healthy alternative to that monster burrito you were thinking about.  An Acai bowl will fill you up, you'll have a ton of fun eating it, and it will give you all the energy and nutrition you need to do whatever it is you like to do.

It's just that I can't stand all the nonsense marketing that tends to follow foods like Acai.  Once a food is dubbed a "superfood", all the snake oil salesmen come crawling out of their caves to capitalize.  Whatever ailment you may have, there's somebody out there that will tell you Acai will fix it.  Unfortunately I don't believe this at all.  Acai is not the magic pill you've been looking for.  It alone will not fix your problems, I'm sorry.  But that's not to take anything away from Acai, because I don't believe there's any single food out there that IS a magic fix.  It's all about your diet as a whole, and the lifestyle you choose to live.

So in a nutshell, Acai is a berry- yes, a particularly healthy berry.  And an Acai bowl is a truly healthy alternative for breakfast or lunch.  No doubt about it.  But you don't need to listen to all the nutritional mumbo jumbo, or to the nonsense marketing, or even to me- come to BYB, eat a bowl, and listen to your body.  It will tell you all you need to know.

These are the Acai pits, once the flesh has been stripped off.  The pits are given to a local brick factory, where they are burned as a source of fuel, rather than headed to the landfill.  Sambazon is awesome...

Sustainability

Another important reason we love Acai- it's a completely sustainable crop, organic and fair-trade certified, and it's cultivation actually helps to protect the Amazon Rainforest.  Our supplier Sambazon (www.sambazon.com) uses its business to do good on a number of fronts- from giving back to the local community, providing meaningful jobs for the locals, helping to preserve the diminishing rainforest, and ultimately selling a healthy delicious food to us consumers.  No other Acai producer goes to nearly the lengths that Sambazon does to make their business sustainable and socially beneficial.

At BYB, here's what we do with our Acai- we make happiness

In the end Acai is a healthy, delicious, and earth-friendly ingredient.  And at BYB we try and do the Acai justice by preparing it in bowls with those same 3 attributes.  I hope this post has cleared some things up, and that you can more thoroughly enjoy the glory that is a Backyard Bowl.

Skip the Wait

The one complaint that we do receive on a relatively regular basis at Backyard Bowls is that the wait is too long. And at times, I absolutely agree. In general, when we are not extremely busy, a bowl should take no more than 5 minutes for us to prepare. However, during a lunch rush, or weekend morning, or sometimes for no apparent reason, our bowls may take much longer than that.

 Rest assured, we do everything we can to get your food to you as quickly possible. The painful truth is that because we insist on making each and every bowl (or smoothie) fresh to order, and we use real ingredients that we chop and prepare by hand, and every bowl takes a certain amount of manpower (love) to make- it is extremely difficult for us to keep up when too many customers show up at the same time. We have gotten much better at it over the past few years, but there are still many times when we are not providing the speed of service that we would like to.

 BUT- Now there is a way for you to SKIP THE LINE, SKIP THE WAIT, and simply show up and have your bowl ready to go... Introducing, the BYB Mobile App! Available for Iphone, Android, as well as online through our website. Order and pay for your order through the app, then just swing in and grab your ready and waiting bowl. Prefer eating "for here"? Excellent, just make a note on your mobile order saying so, and you can still skip the line/wait and dine with us.

 Skip the wait, savor your bowl, and get on with it..

Don't judge a food by its cover

I will forgive you for looking at the box of "Smart Start- Healthy Heart" cereal and thinking you were making a healthful choice for your breakfast.  Just by the sheer volume of health claims on the box you must be eating something that is at least relatively good for you, right?  Nope.  Pure marketing.  In fact, a great rule of thumb that I've heard before- AVOID buying foods that make health claims on the packaging. It's counter-intuitive, but these foods are actually much more likely to be highly processed franken-foods just like the Smart Start cereal.  Always consult the ingredient list before judging a food by its cover- it's the one place where the food manufacturer can't hide anything.

Happy 2012 everyone!  Now that the holidays are over, it's time to start eating like we mean it again- the days of eggnog, massive meals, and excessive baked goods are finally behind us.  And with the prevalence of diet related resolutions I think there's no better time to answer one of our most common inquiries- what's the healthiest thing at BYB?

Now, there's no easy answer to this one.  By most people's standards everything we serve is well within the realm of "healthy"- in general you're already eating some combo of fruits, grains, nuts, seeds (and sometimes veggies) with a touch of honey on top.  Then there's the problem of what "healthy" really means?  And what are your goals?  Are you hoping to lose weight, to enhance performance, up your energy, build muscle, or just feel better?

So without getting bogged down in the details, let me offer a few suggestions:

1.  Don't be scared...  venture beyond the island and berry bowl.  The green bowl really is delicious.  I promise.  I can't tell you how many people have taken months to build up the courage to try it, but once they did never looked back.  And it's got a whole freakin salad's worth of spinach ground into it!  It's truly a nutritional powerhouse.  Or for the athletes out there, try the Diego's Power Bowl.  The combo of hemp seeds/hemp milk/hemp protein and peanut butter give this one a TON of protein, and still won't weigh you down.

2.  Breakfast Bowls.  This part of our menu is hugely underrated, especially from a health perspective.  It's packed with whole grains, local organic ingredients, and other nutritious whole foods.  Replace your bacon and eggs with our Oatmeal, Quinoa, or Spartan Muesli, and you will most definitely feel a difference.  The spacial constraints of menu boards don't let us fully communicate how great these bowls are.  Take the Spartan Muesli for example, the full list of ingredients is as follows:

• Organic thick-rolled Oats, Phat Uncle Farms Almonds, Rancho La Vina Walnuts, Organic fresh-ground Flax Seeds, Avila & Sons dried fruit medley, Peacock Farms Raisins, and home-made Cashew Milk, topped with fresh-cut Bananas, Strawberries, Blueberries, Hemp-seeds, and a drizzle of San Marcos Honey.  

3.  Modify your bowl.  Want less sugar?  Say "no honey, sub almonds for granola".  Want to add a great source of complete protein, omega fatty acids, and fiber?  Say "add hemp seeds" (or "sub hemp-milk", or "add hemp protein").  More vitamins and minerals?  Say "add bee-pollen".  Healthy bacteria and calcium?  "with a bed of yogurt".  Play around, we've got all kinds of good stuff.

Food Excuses

One of the perks I've found to owning a health food restaurant is that I get to hear all the excuses under the sun as to why people do not eat healthfully.  When an obviously unhealthy person learns that I make a living selling healthy food, the conversation almost always progresses to reveal why it is they don't eat more healthfully.

Here are a few of the most common excuses, followed by my thoughts on each of them:

"I'm only on this planet for a short time, so I'm going to enjoy it!!"

• This is the most common excuse when the person learned of my occupation while in the act of eating something blatantly terrible for their health.  In my mind though there's a major gap in the logic here- this is implying that the reason a person would subject themselves to a deprived existence of eating healthfully is to postpone death.  I'd argue that by far the more important reason to eat healthfully is to live your life to its fullest- retaining a reasonable level of health and fitness enables you to do SO much more than when you are confined by an extra 50 lbs of flesh, or a debilitating disease.  I mean, what's worth more to you?  That philly cheesesteak, or your ability to play with your kids?  Eat to live, not simply to avoid death.  

"My great uncle Rick smokes 2 packs a day, eats nothin but steak and potatoes, and at 95 couldn't be healthier!!"

• A quote I read sums it up, "You can drive from San Francisco to LA at 120 MPH and not be pulled over or get in an accident- but I wouldn't bet my life on it."  Unfortunately there is no guarantee that a healthy diet will keep you from getting sick.  Human health is incredibly complex, and there are many factors beyond diet- such as stress or genetics- that play a role as well.  But being healthy is a game of odds- and if you want to greatly increase your odds of living a longer, healthier, more vibrant life- eating right is an easy way to do it.  

"I just can't afford to buy healthy, organic foods"

• Nope.  Sorry, not buying it.  It's not your finances holding you back from buying better food, it's your priorities.  Priorities and downright laziness.  As a percentage of income, Americans spend less per capita on food than almost any other developed nation on earth.  Check out this map that shows how the US stacks up globally http://civileats.com/2011/03/29/mapping-global-food-spending-infographic/.  This observation on American food spending leads to two important points:
• 1.  We're cheating.  We have heaps of inexpensive food readily available all the time.  But how is that?  How in the world is that double cheeseburger $.99?  Well, to attempt to sum up an extremely complex topic:  a large part of the real cost to produce those foods is hidden.  The environmental cost of producing the foods is not accounted for.  Government subsidies help out industrial/processed foods.  Not to mention the health care costs incurred due to eating cheap processed foods.
• 2.  If we're spending so little on food, the substance that gives us life, then what are we actually spending our money on?  The map I really want to see is the "per capita expenditures on crap you don't really need".  I'd bet we're dominating the globe on that one.  Here's another map we're definitely dominating- obesity! http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7151813.stm.  This is NOT coincidental

           Some people actually can't afford to buy better food,  and that is a shame.  But the more people start buying better food, the cheaper those foods will become.  You are what you eat.  What are you?  

3 BYBs in 3 years!?

BYB La Cumbre was born just a couple days ago, and we will be having her grand opening festivities this Saturday the 19th.  It will be lots of fun- live music from 11-2, free organic coffee, raffles for free stuff, contests for free stuff, and 25% of all sales for the day will be donated to the Community Environmental Council, a local nonprofit dedicated to solving Santa Barbara's most pressing environmental issues.  

This is the 3rd BYB in 3 years of business.  Some people may have mixed feelings about this...

After all, what motivates a business like ours to grow?  Money, right?  Fame?  Competition?  Greed?  Ego?

Far too often, yes- all those reasons.

In our case however, there's a problem- Pete and I aren't all that motivated by money.  We want to make a nice living, but really don't care about being filthy rich.  We definitely are not in this for fame.  We're not all that competitive, and surely could never be described as greedy....  so why are we growing?

Our most important goals in business are 1- to promote a healthier lifestyle by serving healthy food.  2- to operate as "green" as possible, and inspire others to do the same.  3- to give our employees meaningful and rewarding jobs with opportunities to learn and advance.  4- to give back to our community.  5- To have fun.

These are the things that actually motivate us.  In the end, we just want to make a difference- to change the way people eat, and change the way business is ran. To do our part to make the world better.  

And given our goals and our motivation- why wouldn't we grow??  

I hope to see you all on Saturday at Backyard Bowls La Cumbre!

Vote with your spoon

The most efficient way to initiate change in this world is with your dollars.  How you spend your money each day should be thought of as casting votes, and possibly the most important of your votes are the foods you choose to eat.  The food you eat obviously has a direct and powerful influence on your personal health, but equally important is the massive impact it has on the health of our planet.

Agriculture, the production of food, is the single most important way that we as humans interact with planet earth.

So, about that cheeseburger- what are you really voting for?  It's all in there- pesticide/chemical usage, animal welfare, health care costs, fuel consumption, corporate greed, soil degredation, carbon emissions, personal health.... a loaded question indeed. 

We like to think that when you choose to dine at Backyard Bowls, you are in turn casting your votes for a lot of good things.  You are voting for healthy foods, and all the personal and social benefits that come from that.  You are voting for eco-friendly business, and all the environmental issues that addresses. You are voting for the use of natural, organic, and local ingredients.  Most importantly though, you are voting for a business that actually cares.  A business with a conscience.

Ask yourself- what kind of world do I want to live in?  Then- Are my daily votes being cast for that kind of world?