AskaHispanic

4/20/07

Ask a Hispanic: Oh No! I Just Ate an Entire Avocado. Is My Diet Ruined?

A Hispanic.com reader wrote in with this question a few days ago, and well the quick answer is: no.  But there’s a little more to it. 

Hispanic.com spoke to two experts on the subject.

A medium avocado has approximately 276 calories, and 28 grams of fat.  Judy Caplan, author of GoBeFull -Eight Keys to a Healthy Lifestyle, and a registered ADA dietician talked to Hispanic.com.  She says the belief avocado's should be avoided is "one of the most common public misconceptions."  Caplan says, "If you love avocado and you want to get all of your healthy, monounsaturated fat from an avocado, you could do that."   Nonetheless Caplan says, if you do go ahead and decide to eat an entire avocado, "it enhances the diet as long as you cut back on other fats, both healthy and unhealthy." If that happens, and someone wants to eat an entire avocado a day, "it would probably mean no salad dressing, peanut butter, or other fat servings of healthy fat that day.” Generally you want to obtain most of the fat in your diet from monounsaturated fats like avocado and cut back on foods that are higher in saturated fats like whole milk dairy products, beef and processed meats.  So instead if you ate an entire avocado in one day, you would want to choose white meat of chicken, turkey or seafood.  

Bhimu Patil, the Director of the Texas A&M Vegetable and Fruit Improvement Center said "No, your diet is not in danger, even if you do eat an entire avocado." But Patil says, even so do not worry. "The avocado is filled with bioactive compounds, compounds which are shown to reduce the risk of certain diseases.   Plus, the fat that in avocado is not affecting cholesterol issues, because it is a plant product containing primary unsaturated fats.   The avocado has a 6 carbon sugar which is actually really beneficial to human health: D-Manno heptuplose.  Also, the avocado is filled with lutein, higher than other fruits in fact, and lutein has shown in studies to prevent age related macular degeneration issues."

So how to incorporate avocado into your diet if you don't necessarily want to cut back on all your fats?   Well Caplan encourages her clients to "eat 5 servings of healthy fat every day”.   2 tablespoons or 1/8 of an avocado is considered 1 serving of healthy fat.   Other examples of healthy fat are: 1 tsp. of olive oil, ½ tablespoon of natural peanut butter, 6 raw almonds, 1 tablespoon of salad dressing, 1 teaspoon of canola mayonnaise, or a teaspoon of ground flaxseed.  Caplan says she herself eats a lot of avocado in her diet, advocating it as a power food.

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