From Health magazine
Although sometimes maligned for its fat content, the creamy, heart-healthy avocado can play a very versatile—and nutritious—role in your diet. Here are a few facts about avocados.
Avocados are a fruit, not a vegetable, and have more potassium than bananas.
The Aztecs, among the earliest harvesters of the avocado, used it as a sexual stimulant.
Avocados are cholesterol-free but have 30 grams of fat, most of which is heart-healthy monounsaturated fat.
Hass avocados (the most common variety) are available year-round. They’re ripe when the skin is nearly black and the fruit yields to soft pressure.
Tip: In the bag
Contributing Editor Robin Miller, host of Food Network’s Quick Fix Meals With Robin Miller, offers this tip: To speed ripening, put avocados in a brown paper bag with an apple for a few days at room temperature. The apple releases ethylene gas, a ripening agent.
By Steve Petusevsky
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Comments (12)
sad
I made a low carb salad dressing tonight with avocado, olive oil, a little sea salt & a little Mrs. Dash
Amazing – creamy, full of mono fats and unbelievably tasty.
I’m not so sure how healthy this is considering the high saturated fat content. While it is good for you to eat sometimes, recommending to put it into your daily menus is a bit presumptuous.
ALLIE:
Please read the article again, then consider this:
Heart-healthy fats
Unsaturated fats: The types of fats found in olive oil, canola oil, nuts, avocados, and fish can actually clear LDL while boosting HDL. A study by Harvard and Johns Hopkins researchers found that swapping a diet high in carbohydrates for one that’s high in unsaturated fats improved the cardiovascular profile of 164 adults over a six-week period. The unsaturated fat diet decreased blood pressure, increased HDL, caused no significant increase in LDL, and lowered triglycerides.*
*taken from Health.com article on unsaturated fats
One more thing about avocados. The original word in the Aztec language was “Ahucatilt”. Translated into English is “Testicle”. Holy cow, eating plant testicles is healthy!
http://thebenjamins101.blogspot.com
It’s a very large misconception that fat is bad. Good article. More people need to work good fat from olive oil, nuts, avocado, etc into their daily diet! They offer many good vitamins and minerals that most people miss out on. Stop eating carbs from bad sources and processed meat!
A very interesting article. Do you have such details on Japanese Persimmons?
These things are full of estrogen also, so keep them
away from growing boys and also girls.
I’m amazed at the ridiculous misconceptions people have about avocados.
Wm: Avocados do not have ovaries. They cannot and do not produce estrogen. In fact, avocados BLOCK estrogen absorption in the body.
Please do some scientific research before you go around scaring and mis-informing people.
Some coworkers have first tried avocados after I brought them to work. They just hated the taste.
My reaction? At first I was thinking something like
“I payed 1$ for just one fruit of this?”
My second reaction (about 5-10 fruits eaten):
“It’s pretty OK, though”
After getting used to the taste:
“I absolutely love it. Great taste. Rich pleasures”.
Right now it’s my favorite fruit for taste. :)
This fruit is one of the best things you can put in your body, and is a primary source of non-animal fats.
To the naysayers out there, I highly doubt eating too much Olive Oil and Avocado is the source of your “fat” problem. Instead I’d look at all the chemicals that go into those “Low-fat” foods and what else they block your body from absorbing.
Keep it natural.
I usually eat one with a salad or for breakfast daily. I love the creamy texture and the fact that it’s a great source of GOOD fat.