Will Maqui Berries Help Me Lose Weight?
Today, a question about Maqui berries and weight loss.
"Have you heard of the Maqui berry? It’s supposed to be better than acai berries and goji berries," wrote one reader. "Is it going to help me lose weight?"
I've lost count of the number of anti-aging "miracle" berries that have appeared on the market in the last few years.
In what sounds remarkably similar to the previous advertising campaign for the last miracle berry, the “previously unknown” Maqui berry is said to be “extremely rare” and “hard to harvest” from some far off location in South America.
Although the last berry was powerful, new scientific tests have revealed that this one is the most powerful berry EVER! Until, that is, the next one comes along...
Maqui berries
Like most berries, such as blackberries or blueberries, the Maqui berry has a relatively high level of antioxidants. But the idea that it has some kind of unique anti-aging or slimming property is just marketing nonsense.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with eating more fruit and vegetables. Not only do they contain a bunch of nutrients that are important for anyone who’s healthy and wants to stay that way, fruit and vegetables can help you lose weight. But that’s not because they contain some kind of “secret” ingredient.
Rather, most fruits and vegetables have a very low energy density. Energy density refers to the number of calories in a gram of food. If you check the nutrition label on the top of a food label, you should find the standard serving size of the food, and the number of calories in that serving.
To calculate the energy density, divide the calories by the weight. A food that contains 200 calories and weighs 100 grams, for example, has an energy density of 2.0.
Let’s use grapes and raisins (which are nothing more than dried grapes) as an example. If you wanted to eat 150 calories of raisins, you’d be able to eat approximately 50 grams. Yet the same number of calories would give you almost 220 grams of grapes — more than four times as much.
Because the grapes are higher in volume, they’ll keep you feeling fuller for longer and you’ll eat less over the course of the day.
In one eating study at Pennsylvania State University, a group of women hardly noticed when they ate fewer calories each day — as long as their meals contained lots of fruits and vegetables to bulk up the servings and lower the energy density [1].
One other tip: When you shop for fruit and vegetables, choose those rich in color — the darkest blackberries, the greenest apples or the reddest strawberries. As a fruit ripens, the pigments become denser. The anthocyanin content of blueberries, for instance, more than doubles between the time they turn blue and the time they reach full maturity. And the darker the fruit, the more antioxidant “power” it has.
About The Author
 Christian Finn holds a master's degree in exercise science, is a certified personal trainer and has been featured on BBC TV and radio, as well as in Men's Health, Men's Fitness, Muscle & Fitness, Fit Pro, Zest and other popular fitness magazines.
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Reference
1. Bell, E.A., Castellanos, V.H., Pelkman, C.L., Thorwart, M.L., & Rolls, B.J. (1998). Energy density of foods affects energy intake in normal-weight women. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 67, 412-420
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