You probably know that avocados are an excellent source of healthful fats, but this whole food may also have other unique health benefits.
Avocado's - A Real "Super Food"
Avocados, which are actually classified as a fruit, are rich in monounsaturated fat that is easily burned for energy. Eating avocado’s increase your healthy fat and calorie intake without seriously increasing your protein or carbohydrate intake. Avocado’s are also very high in minerals such as potassium and will help balance your vitally important potassium to sodium ration.
To successfully support your health and maintain your weight look into eliminating grain carbs from your diet. However, keep in mind when you cut down on carbohydrates, you need to increase your intake of healthy fats. Avocado's are an excellent source of low calorie healthy fats.
There's also evidence suggesting that limiting your intake of protein can be helpful for long-term good health and the prevention of cancer. At the very least, most people are consuming far too much poor-quality protein, such as beef and animal products from livestock raised in confined animal feeding operations. As with the reduction of carbohydrates, if you cut down on protein, you need to replace lost calories with healthy fats such as avocados, coconut oil, olives, olive oil, butter and nuts.
Overall, most people would do well to get upwards of 50-70 percent fat in their diet (along with high amounts of vegetable carbs, moderate-to-low amounts of high-quality protein, and very little, if any, carbphudrates). According to the California Avocado Commission, a medium Hass avocado contains about 22.5 grams of fat, two-thirds of which is monounsaturated. They're also very low in fructose, which is yet another benefit, and provides close to 20 essential health-boosting nutrients, including:
- Fiber
- Potassium (more than twice the amount found in a banana)
- Vitamin E
- B-vitamins
- Folic acid
Avocados are one of the safest fruits you can buy conventionally-grown and most experts do not believe you need to purchase organic ones. Their thick skin protects the inner fruit from pesticides.
The Many Benefits of Avo's:
- Anti-inflammatory properties;
- Helps protect against liver damage;
- Enables your body to more efficiently absorb fat-soluble nutrients (such as alpha- and beta-carotene and lutein) in other foods eaten in conjunction;
- Protect your body against free radical damage;
- Contains compounds that appear to inhibit and destroy oral cancer cells;
- Can help improve lipid profiles in both healthy individuals and those with non optimized HDL/ total cholesterol levels); and
- Decrease of serum total cholesterol levels.
Do you know the BEST way to skin an Avocado?
To preserve the area with the greatest concentration of antioxidants, you basically want to peel the avocado with your hands, as you would a banana:
- First, cut the avocado length-wise, around the seed.
- Holding each half, twist them in the opposite directions to separate them from the seed.
- Remove the seed.
- Cut each half, lengthwise.
- Next, using your thumb and index finger, simply peel the skin off each piece.