Avocados are a wonderful food!
People can be very lukewarm about avocados. If you don’t know when they’re at their peak ripeness, they can be a bit strange in both flavor and texture; that is, tasteless and waxy in texture.
Until recently, people didn’t choose avocados partly because they thought they were tasteless, but mainly because they thought they were high in fat and cholesterol. We all needed more information to make a healthy choice about this fruit.
If you eat a ripe avocado… that is, not too green and not too ripe, it’s a delicacy! The flavor is amazing and the texture is so creamy!
If that’s not enough to make you love eating them, do you know how healthy avocados are for you? They have great benefits, especially for vegetarians.
One of the biggest challenges if you’re eating a vegetarian, or mostly vegetarian, diet is getting enough good-quality protein. Avocados provide a complete protein! As the avocado ripens on the tree, the sun breaks down the proteins in the avocado into easily digestible amino acids. Your body needs all 18 essential amino acids to create complete proteins, and you can get this complete protein by eating avocados!
Avocados are also a wonderful source of healthy fats, and we now know that healthy fats are essential for good health, and especially good brain health. Studies have shown that eating avocados has beneficial effects on cardiometabolic risk factors and has produced lower levels of LDL (low-density lipoprotein) or “bad” cholesterol.
All of this makes eating avocados a win-win for everyone! But how do you eat them? They are easy to add to your meals, so use your imagination. Cut them into a salad; mash them up and use them as a spread on a sandwich; top your scrambled eggs with them; you can even make an amazing chocolate mousse pudding with avocados; and then there is always the guacamole.
If you’re on a tight budget and trying to eat as much organic produce as you can, it’s good to know that so far, avocados are on the Environmental Working Group’s “clean 15” list of foods. That is, they are among the foods that are least sprayed with pesticides. At the moment, you can get conventionally grown avocados at lower prices than organic ones.
One last piece of advice: eating an avocado at the right time can make you love them. Buy several at a time, keep a couple in the fridge, and take them out a day or two before you need to have them at proper maturity. That way you’ll always have a beautiful, creamy avocado ready when you need it!