Acerola and other vitamin C fruits
A plain guide to four tart fruits sold in Australia as powders and juices: acerola, Kakadu plum, camu camu and rosehip. What each one is, where it comes from, how it tastes and how people use it.
At a glance
| Fruit | From | Taste | Common forms |
|---|---|---|---|
| Acerola | Caribbean and northern South America | Tart, juicy | Juice, purée, powder |
| Kakadu plum | Northern Australia | Tart, bitter, astringent | Powder, purée |
| Camu camu | Amazon basin | Very sour and bitter | Freeze-dried powder, juice |
| Rosehip | Europe to Central Asia; introduced in Australia | — | Dried hips for tea, syrup, powder |
The four fruits
Acerola
Malpighia emarginata (also sold as Barbados cherry; formerly M. punicifolia)
- Origin
- Native to the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean (St Croix to Trinidad), Curaçao, Margarita and northern South America; later naturalised in Cuba, Jamaica and Puerto Rico.
- Looks like
- A small, glossy, bright-red cherry-like fruit about 1.25–2.5 cm wide, round to slightly flattened and faintly three-lobed, with juicy orange flesh and several small seeds.
- Taste
- The flesh is very juicy and acid to subacid (tart); it is often stewed with sugar to balance the tartness.
- Sold as
- Juice and purée; juice has been dried into a powder commercially. Also made into syrups, jelly and jam.
- Used in
- The juice is used in desserts, punch and sorbet-style drinks, and added to other fruit juices; fresh juice also stops sliced banana from browning.
What the research says: Analyses reported in Morton's Fruits of Warm Climates found about 4,500 mg vitamin C per 100 g in green fruit, 3,300 mg in medium-ripe and 2,000 mg in very ripe fruit, with wide variation by variety, location and growing conditions.
Acerola powders and blends at Mega Health →
Sources: growables.org, ntbg.org, www.drugs.com
Kakadu plum
Terminalia ferdinandiana (also known as gubinge or billygoat plum)
- Origin
- Native to northern Australia; it grows in the eucalypt woodlands of the northern savannas from the Kimberley to Cape York.
- Looks like
- A small, smooth, olive-sized fruit, ovoid with a short beak, pale olive-green to yellow-green (sometimes slightly reddish) when ripe, with a central woody stone.
- Taste
- Described as fibrous with a tart and bitter taste; somewhat bland at first with a definite sour and astringent finish.
- Sold as
- Purée and powder developed for adding to foods; also used in jams, sauces, relishes and beverages.
- Used in
- Added to foods and drinks; a Kakadu plum yoghurt was launched in 2018 using fruit from the Thamarrurr Plum Enterprise.
- Harvest
- Kakadu plum is a traditional Aboriginal bush food, and in the Top End and Kimberley it is mostly wild-harvested by Aboriginal communities on Indigenous-owned land.
What the research says: Charles Darwin University describes Kakadu plum as having the highest vitamin C content of any fruit in the world (more than 17% of dry weight), citing Williams et al. (2014). Menzies School of Health Research reports levels of 3.5–5.9% of the fruit's weight.
Roogenic Kakadu Plum Powder at Mega Health →
Sources: agrifutures.com.au, menzies.edu.au, www.cdu.edu.au, news.uq.edu.au, pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Camu camu
Myrciaria dubia
- Origin
- Native to the Amazon region of Brazil, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela.
- Looks like
- A round berry about 2.5 cm across with one to four seeds; green when unripe and turning red-purple as it ripens.
- Taste
- Strongly acidic and bitter, so it is rarely eaten fresh and is usually processed into other products.
- Sold as
- Freeze-dried and spray-dried powders, pulp, juices, nectars and purées.
- Used in
- Used in juices and other drinks, dairy products such as yoghurt, jams and biscuits.
What the research says: A 2023 review in ACS Omega describes camu camu as one of the main natural sources of vitamin C, reporting about 1,882 mg per 100 g; content varies with ripeness, genotype and processing.
Blends with camu camu at Mega Health →
Sources: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Rosehip
Rosa canina (dog rose)
- Origin
- Native to Madeira, north-west Africa, and Europe through to Central Asia and Pakistan; introduced in Australia.
- Looks like
- The hip is egg-shaped to round, up to about 15 mm long, smooth and dark red.
- Sold as
- Dried hips for herbal tea; also jam, jelly, syrup and freeze-dried powder.
- Used in
- Commonly brewed as herbal tea (often blended with hibiscus) and made into jams, jellies and syrups.
What the research says: A 2024 review in Frontiers in Pharmacology reports a vitamin C content of 1,252.3 mg per 100 g fresh weight for Rosa canina hips, and notes that reported values vary widely with ripeness, drying and testing method.
Rosehip juice at Mega Health →
Sources: powo.science.kew.org, vicflora.rbg.vic.gov.au, pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, en.wikipedia.org, pir.sa.gov.au
Using fruit powders
Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) breaks down when exposed to heat, light and oxygen, so stirring a fruit powder into cold or already-cooked food or drink, rather than cooking with it, helps keep more of it.
Source: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Fruit powders and vitamin C powders
Fruit powders are whole foods, so their vitamin C comes with the rest of the fruit: its flavour, colour and fibre. Vitamin C powders are the vitamin itself, in a few different forms.
Ascorbic acid is the plain form of vitamin C. Sodium ascorbate and calcium ascorbate are mineral salts of ascorbic acid; they are less acidic and are therefore described as 'buffered', and they also supply sodium or calcium.
Source: lpi.oregonstate.edu
Vitamin C foods at Mega Health →
About this guide
This page describes foods, not treatments. It makes no claims about health effects. In Australia, claims about the vitamin content or health benefits of a food are regulated by Food Standards Australia New Zealand, and the label on each product is the place to find what it actually contains.