If there’s one ingredient that has become massively popular over the past few years, it’s without a single doubt, the avocado. The delicious and healthy fruit has been praised by many dietitians as a fantastic substitute for fatty foods, and it turns out that eating avocados on a regular basis has a ton of health benefits for your body.
In short, the nutritional value is remarkable, which is one of the reasons why the fruit has become so popular. Plus, it tastes really good.
Let’s take a look at what eating an avocado a day does to your body.
1) It helps you feel more saturated and helps with weight loss
It’s no secret that avocados are generally high in fats compared to other fruits, but these healthy and unsaturated fats are essential for your body nonetheless. Avocados are rich in fibers as well, which do a great job at easing your hunger.
In other words, if you’ve just had an avocado, you likely won’t be hungry for a while and you’ll also want to snack less. Eating fatty foods to get rid of fat? It sounds like something that’s too good to be true, but if you’re moderate in your avocado consumption, it’s definitely possible.
2) Lower chance of developing cancer
Research has shown that avocados – full of beneficial nutrients – provide a number of benefits that result in a lower chance of developing mouth, breast and prostate cancer. The reason? The delicious green fruits are rich in phytochemicals, healthy bioactive substances that are mostly found in plants.
3) It helps you look younger
Did you know that avocados are filled with calcium, iron, magnesium, and tons of important vitamins and antioxidants? As you can imagine, these nutrients will give your body a healthy and clean look, but it’s mostly the lutein and zeaxanthin present in avocados that combat the aging process and make you look younger. As an added benefit, these two substances will also create a natural buffer for your skin against UV-radiation.
4) Lower chance of developing heart disease
Nonsaturated fats are considered to be healthy for the heart, and the large green berries also contain a lot of folates and Vitamin E – both have proven health benefits and are particularly useful to prevent heart diseases. The unsaturated fats found in avocados help ease your HDL cholesterol and will improve your insulin sensitivity as well.
How much avocado should you eat in a day?
Let’s assume you need about 2000 calories per day and around 2.2 ounces of fat, which is a normal feeding pattern for an adult. Consuming a complete avocado a day may be a bit too much, as a normal-sized one will account for about 250 calories and 0.8 ounces of fat. For example, that’s significantly more than an apple, which only amounts to about a hundred calories and doesn’t contain any fat at all.
Assuming you take in sufficient fats from other meals, it’s better to eat half of an avocado a day.
And if you do insist on eating one of these delicious green fruits completely, it’s best to spread it out during the day and replace fat-rich products which don’t contain many nutrients (such as bacon or croutons) with pieces of avocado.
Scientific research from 2012 shows that people who consumed avocado on a daily basis or very regularly live significantly healthier. Researchers have credited avocados as being responsible for a better overall diet quality and intake of nutrients, and avocado eaters also have a lower intake of added sugars.
They’ve also shown that people who regularly eat the delicious fruit have an overall lower body weight, BMI value, and waist circumference. And despite the fact that avocados are relatively high in calories, the saturated feeling you get more than makes up for it.
In other words, avocados aren’t only delicious, they’re really good for you too!
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