Avocado superfood is among a short list of power foods that ensure optimal beauty and health. It has the ability to boost your metabolism, improve your mood, protect your heart, and even help you fight cancer.
Equipped with high levels of free-radical scavengers called anti-oxidants, avocado superfood makes for a delicious snack, healthy meal or tasty supplement that’s good for your heart and easy on your waistline.
The Fall And Rise of Avocado Superfood
Once thought to be harmful because of a high fat content, the avocado superfood has made a remarkable comeback in the field of nutritional science and superfood research. It was believed that, like olives and nuts that were also rich in fats, avocado superfood would clog your arteries and pack on weight.
Once the healing properties of avocado superfood were discovered, however, there was no looking back. Today, the emphasis is less on its calorie or fat content but about other compounds it contains with protective influences on your health.
We also know that the beneficial fats in plant foods are essential for good and healthy living. That’s how avocado superfood is now welcome again in our diet plans and our smoothies or milkshakes!
Potassium Plus Fat And Fiber = Avocado
Avocado superfood has an incredibly high content of useful nutrients. In all, there are nearly twenty different minerals and vitamins identified in avocado.
Avocado contains twice as much potassium as in a regular sized banana, and is further packed densely with folic acid, magnesium and antioxidants. It is fiber rich, and therefore benefits your gut, heart and helps with weight loss. A cup of avocado superfood provides a third of your daily fiber needs.
But what truly makes avocado superfood a category champion is due to a special ingredient called carotenoids.
What is Lutein?
One of 600 the colored pigments called carotenoids that give fruits and vegetables a characteristic red/orange color, lutein has powerful antioxidant capabilities that safeguard against heart disease and cancer. Lutein also protects your eyes against age-related changes that impair vision and end in blindness, such as macular degeneration.
Avocado superfood is richer in lutein than any other fruit sources like broccoli, corn, kale superfood and spinach.
Fatty Avocado Fights Cancers
The creamy texture that’s responsible for its popular name of ‘butter fruit’ is the consequence of a high fat content. But more than half of this fat takes the form of mono-unsaturated fatty acids which are heart-healthy. Diets rich in these fats actually lowers cholesterol and triglyceride levels in blood, bringing down the danger of heart disease.
In studies done on subjects with elevated cholesterol levels who were given avocado superfood to eat, LDL (‘bad’) cholesterol came down while HDL (‘good’) cholesterol went up. Along with the carotenoids that fight cancer so effectively, it’s obvious that avocado superfood is a wonderful adjunct to better health and longevit.
Research from California and Ohio has conclusively proven that avocado superfood helps prevent growth of pre-cancer and cancer cells from the mouth and prostate gland. It is believed that the combination of phytochemicals and carotenoids is behind this effect.
Include Avocado Superfood In Your Diet
A perennial favorite in supermarkets, avocado superfood is widely available all over the world. It typically grows between March and August, though local climatic changes may change this pattern.
Buy the unripe fruit and allow it to ripen. When it becomes slightly soft to the touch, avocado superfood can be refrigerated to last longer. Slice an avocado lengthwise, remove the pit, and scoop out the flesh to use in one of the mouthwatering superfood recipes.
Including avocado superfood in your meals and snacks is easy and convenient. Doing so will increase satiety, enhance taste and improve health. It is ideal to mash into dips or spreads, blend into smoothies or milkshakes, or smear onto toast or crackers.
For more about superfoods that boost health and energy, be sure to check out these lovely handpicked guides…