There are many health benefits of avocado. It’s not clear who first referred to avocados as “nature’s butter”. It isn’t hard to figure out why they picked this moniker. Creamy, enriched with healthy fat and oh-so-spreadable, there’s no prep required—just add toast!
But, why should you add healthy avocado to your diet if you haven’t already? Here are the top 7 benefits to consider:
Avocado is full of healthy fats.
The main type of fat that you’ll find in avocado is oleic acid, a monounsaturated fat. This means it has one double bond per molecule (hence the “mono”) and tends to be liquid at room temperature.
Not only does fat help your body to absorb vitamins A, D, E and K (the fat-soluble vitamins), monounsaturated fats have also been shown to help reduce inflammation, lower LDL cholesterol (the “bad” type), and maybe even reduce the risk of certain types of cancer. This is one of the main health benefits of avocado. If you have decided to start eating more cleanly, I have several suggestions how to use avocado in your meals.
Avocados can help to protect your eyesight.
According to the Mayo Clinic, avocado is a good source of lutein, a carotenoid found in many green fruits and vegetables. Lutein is an antioxidant that’s known for helping to promote good vision. This is a complicated process. So, how does it work?
A simple explanation is that lutein accumulates in the retina, a special lining at the back of the eye that basically takes in light and turns it into a signal that’s sent to the brain, enabling us to see. The lutein helps to absorb blue light. It is thought to help fight the damaging effects of free radicals in the body that are produced by blue light. Pretty cool, right?
Lutein may actually help to reduce the risk of cataracts and macular degeneration, two common diseases of the eye.
Adding avocado to a salad may help to control blood pressure.
This is because avocado is a good source of potassium, a nutrient that reduces the potentially damaging effects of sodium in the body.
In addition to reducing your salt intake, which is especially important for those of you out there who have hypertension or high blood pressure, adding a daily dose of avocado and other potassium-rich foods to your diet can have beneficial effects in the blood pressure and heart health departments, too.
Avocados can aid cell repair and cell growth.
Avocado is a good source of folate. Though these healthy bodily processes are important for everyone, they’re particularly important during pregnancy.
Folate is very important to fetal development. Many processed foods made and sold in the US are actually fortified with folic acid, the synthetic (i.e. non-natural) form of folate, in order to help to prevent neural tube defects and other potential risks to the health of a developing fetus during the first few months of pregnancy.
Avocado even helps your blood to clot!
Though this probably isn’t something that you think about very often, your blood’s ability to coagulate is pretty important. Don’t believe me? Ask anyone who has a problem with excessive bleeding how important it really is.
Avocados are a good source of Vitamin K, which helps blood to clot and thus helps to prevent never-ending nose bleeds, cuts that won’t stop gushing, etc. The “K” in this nutrient’s name is actually short for “Koagulationsvitamin,” German for—you guessed it—coagulation vitamin. Now you’ll never forget!
Vitamin K also helps to improve bone density, since Vitamin K and calcium work together in the body.
One final note, if you’re a person who doesn’t usually partake in the deliciousness of avocado:
Before you run out and buy a case or two at the farmers’ market or sign up for a subscription with the Avocado of the Month Club (yes, this is apparently a real thing), keep in mind that anyone with an allergy to latex should avoid eating avocados.
You’re probably wondering why.
It’s because of a potential cross-reaction between the proteins found in latex and the proteins in certain fruits and vegetables.
Despite the potential health benefits, anyone with a legitimate allergy should avoid eating avocados. Sorry!
For those of you who don’t have a medical reason for avoiding this delicious fruit (yup, avocado is in fact a fruit—it’s technically a berry!), start adding it to salads, smoothies, dips and sandwiches today and every day!
The avocado is definitely an example of my favorite kind of medicine—the kind that tastes amazing!
If you disagree and think the taste or texture of avocado is the pits, try blending ripe avocado with foods that you do like. Add it to those tantalizing dips and smoothies that we were just talking about.
What are some of your favourite avocado recipes? Share with me in the comments!
Avocado is fantastic for your beauty routine
There are many health benefits of avocado. Avocado is fantastic food. It is fool of vitamins, essential fats,, and it is not only good for eating Try adding avocado in your daily beauty routine too. Do you know that avocado is a great cure for dry hair. Mix it with olive oil and results will be incredible.
Avocado oil can also be used as a great, natural face serum, but you can also use it as an eye cream. Don’t hesitate to use it also to relieve itchy and sunburnt skin, but also for dark spots on face.
Avocados are considered a natural aphrodisiac
Since the time of the Aztecs, avocado was named as an aphrodisiac. Because of how it looked at first, it was thought to be aphrodisiac. Since avocado is known to increase testosterone production, it’s a good food to help your man get in the mood! If that’s what you want, but you also want to make him last longer in bed, read our article.
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