The one fruit common in the keto, vegan, healthy, nutritious, and other weight loss diets is Avocado. What is so magical about eating an avocado every day? What are the health benefits of avocado, especially the benefits of eating avocado for breakfast, as most influencers suggest? That brings me to another query what will happen if I start eating avocado on an empty stomach?
Nonetheless, there are plenty of questions. What is essential is to find the answers to each question step by step, hence this article’s role.
Table of Contents
What is avocado
The avocado’s nutrition composition, especially the healthy unsaturated fatty acid levels and raise the question of whether avocado is a fruit or vegetable. Technically avocado is a fruit, which has dark-green, nubby skin, grows year-round, softens or ripens after harvesting, and has a flavor of mildly nutty and creamy. The scientific name of avocado is Persea americana.
Avocado is native to Mexico and considered a tropical American fruit and often recognized as the “New world’s most essential contribution to human nutrition. Avocado fruit is a phytochemical-dense food high in dietary fiber (4.6 g), potassium (345 mg), magnesium (19.5 mg), folate (60mg), vitamin C (6 mg), vitamin E (1.3 mg), niacin (1.3 mg), choline (10mg), and MUFA’s (71%) & PUFAs (13%) [1]. Moreover, you will get 160 Cal/100g avocado calories.
What are the benefits of avocado?
What is avocado good for? This question arises when we see the internet full of recipes with avocados. The benefits of avocado are immense, like improving cognitive functions, stimulating improved colonic microflora health, fecal metabolites, etc. [2]
The daily consumption of avocado has the potential to increase the diversity of colonic microbiota health, which can be explained by lower fecal bile acid concentration, higher fecal fatty acids & short chain fatty acids, and greater abundance of fiber fermenting bacteria [4].
The presence of a high amount of unsaturated fat as compared to saturated fat, viscous and prebiotic fiber, the comparatively lower energy density of 1.6 Kcal/g, and high carotenoid bioavailability are the potential reasons for the benefits of avocado in maintaining good health of the human being [2].
Whether believe it or not, avocado oil is good for human health and has a beneficiary effect on Sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL). Avocado oil and compounds, especially 20 fatty acid derivatives, have a regenerative effect on damaged auditory hair cells [7, 8].
Also, avocado is unique oleic acid that promotes a greatly bioavailable source of lutein, and lipid improves carotenoid absorption for other fruit and vegetable consumed together and thus improved cardiovascular health and cognitive function [9].
Avocado benefits for the skin of women (27 to 73 years) in one of the studies, where oral daily consumption of one avocado fruit every day for eight weeks could improve firmness & elasticity and remove tiring repeat stretching of the forehead skin [3]. With the cell culture method, it was stated that dietary supplements might improve the firmness & elasticity of facial skin by inducing collagen gene expression [3].
Avocado benefits during pregnancy
The key nutrients such as folate and potassium, which generally a pregnant mother tends to be deficient for, can be fulfilled by the avocado fruit [5].
The other nutrients which are not critical, i.e., fiber, monosaturated fats, and lipid-soluble antioxidants, can improve the health of the mother during pregnancy, birth outcomes, and/or breast milk quality [5].
In addition to the mom’s health, avocado oil-containing supplementation of the mother during gestation and lactation helps in somatic postnatal development and further improves memory in juvenile and adult phases; hence avocado benefits babies [6].
Avocado benefits for men
Apart from certain minerals like zinc and selenium, the role of omega-3 fatty acids is emphasized for human sperm quality [10]. Zinc deficiency is the reason for sperm abnormalities and can have bad effects on serum testosterone.
The avocado benefits for sperm are that it promotes spermatogenesis and sperm quality by supplementing with ample amounts of zinc (0.64 mg/100g), MUFAs (up to 9 g/100g), and vitamin E (2.07 mg/100g) [10, 11, 12]. In fact, vitamin E, along with selenium, is advocated to use in the treatment of male infertility [13].
How to eat avocado to lose weight
For weight control, it’s quite evitable that adequate fiber intake can promote weight loss, losing inches around the waist, and visceral fat reduction. In fact, avocado fruit fiber, or any fruit fiber for that matter, acts like prebiotics that re-balance microflora, increasing its anti-inflammatory profile [15].
The high bulk volume but low energy density (ED) between 0.3 to 1.6 kcal/g of avocado fruit supports better weight management goals [16]. As proved in the research, daily consumption of avocados lowers the prevalence of excess weight gain [16].
In another study, the replacement of carbohydrates in a high-carb meal with an avocado-derives fat and fiber mixture could increase the feeling of satiety. As we know, the feeling of satiety is key for weight loss and balancing negative energy (binging) [17].
When participants consumed a meal with avocado for 12 weeks, it could alter abdominal fat and high MUFA with decreased triglyceride levels but no effect on beta-cells or insulin resistance hence questioning the avocado benefits in diabetes [14].
Summary
Avocado native to Mexico is worldwide considered a “superfood,” which seems quite justified looking at the benefits of avocado consumption to human beings. It enhances the micro-flora of our gut, improving cognitive functions, cardiovascular health, and, most importantly, weight loss. Moreover, avocado benefits during pregnancy by improving maternal health, improving birth outcomes and breast milk, and post-natal memory of the child. Although avocado is not a romantic fruit to eat on valentine’s, consumption improves sperm quality and benefits sexually.
FAQ
What is the best way to eat avocado?
Seasoned and eaten with toast are the simplest and healthiest best way to eat avocado; you can also stuff or eat it with scrambled egg, prepare guacamole, in soups, etc.
What goes well with avocado?
Following is the list of food items goes well with avocado
– Bacon
– Chicken
– Salmon
– Black beans
– Crab
– Turkey
What vitamins does avocado have?
Avocado has vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin K, and Vitamin B6.
What can you make with avocado besides guacamole?
Although Guacamole may help in weight loss and healthy as it contains avocado nutrition, other dishes where avocado is used are California chicken club pizza, avocado toast or avocado egg toast, creamy avocado manicotti, avocado in smoothies, avocado in a sandwich, etc.
What happens if you eat a rotten avocado?
Eating a rotten or moldy avocado is not at all good for your health; you may experience stomach upset, diarrhea, or vomiting.
What is avocado oil good for?
Avocado oil is good for reducing LDL cholesterol & increasing HDL cholesterol since it contains heart-healthy oil, high in oleic acid and vitamin E. It also helps the body absorb fat-soluble vitamins.
Can babies eat avocado?
For the first six months, babies feed on mom’s milk; therefore, babies can eat avocado post-six months when they are grown enough to have solid foods.
