Maqui fruit: the antioxidant berry revered by warriors
Used in our DEBLOAT FOOD + PREBIOTIC, we spotlight the wild superfood with an antioxidant value seven times stronger than acai.
Maqui berries from the Maqui tree (also known as Aristotelia chilensis or Chilean wineberry) act as a natural digestive enzyme and help to stimulate your digestive juices. Native to the ecologically-unique rainforests of Chile, Maqui has the highest antioxidant content of any known fruit, with an Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity (ORAC) value (how antioxidants are measured) seven times stronger than acai.
It is one of the sacred plants for the indigenous Mapuche people, the largest ethnic group in Chile, who are known to consider it as a symbol of goodwill and peaceful intention. Studies have shown that the fruit demonstrates “antioxidant capacity, anti-inflammatory, antidiabetic, antimicrobial, and cardioprotective effects together with gastroprotective activities.”
Chris Kilham, a medicine hunter, author, educator and TV personality who has conducted medicinal plant research in over 45 countries and lectures worldwide about holistic wellness and botanical medicines, travelled to the area of Maihue’ in Southern Chile to witness the community of Mapuche native people harvest tens of tons of wild maqui berry for commercial sale “in increasingly large quantities, as demand for this nutritious and healing berry has increased. In harvest season, the whole Mapuche community turns out to pick the vibrant purple berries.”
“Maqui berry is an intensely purple berry that grows wild throughout parts of southern Chile. Along roads and highways, maqui berry bushes are easy to spot. They grow all over hillsides, throughout fields, and on the borders of forested areas.” As there is so much available in the wild, cultivation is unnecessary Chris explains, “The people who harvest most of the maqui berry sold commercially are the Mapuche Indians. Known as fierce warriors, the Mapuche are the only native people in the Americas who were not conquered by invading colonists.” Was it a coincidence that the Mapuche native people had been eating maqui berries and drinking their juice for centuries? We’ll leave that up to you to decide.
We use digestive enzymes sourced from maqui fruit alongside Papain (a naturally occurring digestive enzyme from the papaya fruit) in DEBLOAT FOOD + PREBIOTIC to help break down the proteins in food into smaller protein fragments called peptides and amino acids that can be absorbed by the intestine and transported in the blood. Papain has been clinically proven to significantly improve constipation and reduce bloating, while maqui helps to stimulate digestion.