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 (4)
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