Avocados
Are avocados good for your heart? Yes, as long as you’re eating them instead of saturated fats. A 2015 Cochrane Review found that cutting down on saturated fats reduces the risk of heart disease by about 17 percent — but you can’t just lower your overall fat intake, you have to sub in other fats instead. Enter the avocado — it’s a quality source of monounsaturated fat (a.k.a. good fat), says Sheila Kealey, an Ottawa-based nutrition researcher who works with the University of California at San Diego. Although polyunsaturated fats (like olive oil) are best for your heart, monounsaturated fats seem to work as well. Bonus: Avocados are also rich in phytosterols, which help lower cholesterol levels.
Can avocados help you lose weight? It’s tricky. Avocados have a lot of calories— about 230 of them per medium-sized avocado. But they’re also full of fat and fibre, which make them very filling. Just be mindful of your daily calorie intake. “If you’re replacing potato chips with avocados, that’s probably a good thing,” Kealey says. “If you’re just adding them to your diet, not so much.”
Do avocados help fight cancer? A recent study, led in part by researchers at the University of Waterloo and Mount Sinai Hospital, inspired headlines like, “An avocado a day keeps leukemia away.” But those stories failed to point out that the researchers were actually looking at avocatin B, a compound found in avocado seeds, not in the flesh that we normally eat—and that they were injecting the compound directly into leukemia cells grown in a lab. These compounds could eventually lead to a new leukemia drug. But it certainly doesn’t mean your breakfast of avocado on toast now qualifies as a cancer fighter.
Can avocados can help reduce birth
defects? Maybe. They’re a good source of folate, which reduces the risk of spina bifida, a birth defect that became more common as we shifted away from fruits and vegetables and toward processed foods. Still, Health Canada advises women of child-bearing age to take a folic acid supplement in addition to eating a healthy diet.
They’re said to improve heart health, aid with weight loss and even fight cancer. How much of that
is true? We checked the research.
Are avocados full of vitamins and minerals?
Chock full. “What’s neat about avocados is that they’re a whole food, so they bring fibre, potassium and magnesium,” says Kealey. Avocados are also high in vitamin E (which helps boost immunity), vitamin K (which strengthens bones) and lutein (which is good for your eyes). But while avocados are much healthier for you than processed foods, they don’t necessarily have an edge in nutrition content over other fruits and vegetables. “Avocados are good for you, but so is basically anything in the produce aisle,” Kealey says.