(S7E1) Nutrition & Wellness with Alli, MS, CN - Avocados

Hi, everybody. Welcome to Relished. I'm Ali. I am a nutritionist and a yoga teacher, and I'm here to talk to you every week about nutrition topics. Super excited about today's show because we're talking about the avocado. Such a popular food item these days, and we are going to talk about the history of avocados, the types of avocados, the health benefits, and then we're going to do a delicious recipe for avocado coconut popsicles. I have a new microphone today, which I'm very excited about, so please let me know if you can hear me or if you can't hear me. That would be super helpful, but I think so far so good. We practiced on it today. Anyway, the avocado. So many great recipes have come out of the avocado, and just a great addition to our diet. We're going to talk about the history. We're going to talk about all the different kinds, which there are way more kinds that I knew about after I learned about that in my research, and lots of health benefits from the avocado. If you have any questions or comments, please put them in the chat. As you can see, I have already started the conversation in the chat by putting today's recipe called Avocado Coconut Popsicles, which you can find on relish.com. I also put my Instagram at AllieShercliff because I always post the week after the show, or the week of the show, I post the outcome of the recipe, and you can find out all kinds of other fun information on my Instagram. I'm also going to be giving my website later in the show because of some exciting news. So, the avocado. The history of the avocado. So, the avocado originated in, originates in Mexico, in South Central Mexico, and archaeologists have found that people have been eating avocados for over 10,000 years. That's amazing. That's a long time. And it is believed that the Mesoamerican tribes first domesticated avocados about 5,000 years ago, which is the same time as the invention of the wheel. So, I thought that was pretty cool. Avocados, the wheel, same time frame. So, the Aztecs believed that the fruit gave strength to whoever consumed it, and the, in ancient Mayan culture, their calendar, one of the 14th month of the calendar, had a glyph of an avocado on it. So, it was important in that culture as well. And this is interesting. So, I learned the origin of the word avocado comes from the Spanish word aguacate, which comes from the Aztec word ahucatl. Ahucatl. So, all three different versions of the word. That's kind of how we got to the word avocado, was from those two origins of the word. Interesting. And the avocado traveled up to the United States area in 1833. It was mostly grown and consumed in California and Florida, mostly because of the weather, the climate was good for growing avocados. And they were popular then, and then they kind of got out of popularity in the U.S. in around the 1980s, when people started eating low-fat diets, and they became worried and afraid of fat. But then, of course, luckily, we have done more research and found that the fats are really good for us. We're going to talk about that more during the show, but now they're back in style. Everybody's eating avocado. Every diet and lifestyle pretty much includes the avocado. The paleo, vegetarian, keto, and I'll tell you all the reasons for that. And basically because it's delicious in every form that we eat avocados. So, glad it's back in our lives. So, let's see. Oh, the United States accounts for 79% of the exported avocados from Mexico. I thought that was really interesting. And it's also grown in... So, avocados are grown other places now besides Mexico, such as the Dominican Republic, Indonesia, Colombia, South Africa, Brazil, Australia. I love avocado. Yes, I agree. I do too. Avocados are the best. And also, Florida, California, and Hawaii. So, they're basically grown in nice, warm, inviting environments. So, there we go. And so, basically, in history, there have been three types of avocado. The Guatemalan, the Mexican, and the West Indian avocado is kind of the three types that people have talked about in history. Now, there are so many different varieties. So, those are based on those three. These varieties are based on those three. Oh, my goodness. Some places say there are seven varieties. Some say there are 15. Some say there are 17. Some say there are 20 varieties. So, I think that we can conclude that there are a lot of different varieties of avocados. I'm going to quickly go over nine varieties, but there are more. But these are the ones that are most commonly found in the U.S. So, the Haas avocado is the most popular. They're the most commonly found avocado that we see in the... Oh, this is avocados of Mexico... that we see in the grocery store. So, it has that dark skin, but it does start out as green, and then it turns into that purplish, dark, bumpy skin. And it has that nice greenish-yellow interior. And it's also called the alligator pear avocado, which is interesting. Alligator because of the texture, pear because of the pear shape. So, this is the Haas avocado, most commonly consumed avocado in the U.S. And let's see. The next kind, I thought this was interesting, is called a bacon avocado, which I have not heard of the bacon avocado. But they're medium-sized. They're mild in flavor. They have smooth, thin, green skin with a yellowish-green interior. Those are the best. Yes, they are the best. And then there's the fuerte avocado, which is Spanish for strong. And it's a popular California variety. And let's see. It's because it has more of a pronounced pear shape. And it has a milder flavor because it has a higher water content in it. And it has thinner, smoother skin than the Haas avocado. The next one is so cute. They're called cocktail avocados. I've never heard of these before, and I don't think I've ever seen them. But I looked up a picture of them, and they look like pickles. They're these little, small-shaped avocados that are thinner and shorter. And cocktail avocados, I think just because they're called cocktail avocados because they're small and cute. And they are miniature versions of the fuerte avocado. Then there is the gwen avocado, which is similar in taste and texture to the Haas avocado, but they're slightly larger with a plump oval shape. And I think it's interesting because sometimes avocados do look different in the store. So I wonder if we're getting those varieties sometimes as well. Then there's the lula or lulu variety. And these are large, and these are larger than the Haas. And they're grown, they're almost a pound each, so that's very large. And those are grown in Texas. Then there's the pinkerton, which is a long, pear-shaped avocado with a smaller pit, which I have noticed sometimes that we've gotten avocados with really small pits. And they have medium, thick, slightly pebbly green skin. And they're easier to peel than the other avocados. Then there is the reed, we have two more. Then there's the reed avocado, which is large and round in shape. And the thick, green, slightly pebbly skin has a nice, it covers the nice, it says that the flesh is really buttery. So I wonder if it's more buttery than the Haas. And the reed avocados, the skin stays green. So you've probably seen those in the store as well. And then there's the zutano, which is a pear-shaped avocado. And it also says it's easily recognizable from the yellowish-green skin. And it stays that color as well. So that's kind of the story on the types. Now I'm just going to quickly address avocado oil, because first of all, it's delicious. And second of all, I just want to talk, because I read a little blurb about how the avocado oil is made, and I thought that I just wanted to share that, because it's really good. And you can use it in salad dressings, you can drizzle it over bread, or you can drizzle it over cheese, or fruit, or whatever you're going to have it with, or tomatoes, or whatever. But it's just a beautiful green. So basically, they take the avocados, they wash them, they peel them, take the pits out, and then they run the flesh or the pulp through a machine that sort of smashes it. So it kind of looks like a huge bat of guacamole, but it's just the avocado. And then they put that in a centrifuge and spin it, and spin it, and spin it, and spin it. And that separates the pulp, and the water, and the oil. And then the oil stays on top of the water. And then they filter the oil out, and it's a nice, bright green color, if it is unrefined. So if it doesn't have anything that's done to it. So that's how you make avocado oil. I thought that was pretty cool. So you can consume it sometimes. It's used in body products, like lotions, or hair products, or something like that too, or body washes. But anyway, that's how it is made. So let's start talking about the health benefits, and then we'll make our recipe, which I'm really excited about these popsicles. Okay, I've altered the recipe a little bit, but it's still going to be really, really, really good. Okay, so health benefits of the avocado. I ran the information through my nutrition analysis program and found... So I'm going to give you nutrition information for a whole avocado. I know sometimes we just eat a fourth of an avocado, or half of an avocado, but this is going to be for the whole avocado. So you can just divide it by two or four, if that's what you want to know. So one avocado has 322 calories. It has 29 grams of fat, and only four of those grams are saturated. About four are polyunsaturated, and 20 of those grams are monounsaturated, which we're going to talk about a little bit more later, the benefits of the monounsaturated fats. So that's the fat breakdown. Zero grams of cholesterol, because it's a plant product. Cholesterol only comes from animal products, and it's high in potassium. It has... A whole avocado has 28% of our daily needs of potassium, which we will discuss later, but that's good. That's really good. And low in carbs, 17 grams of carbs for an entire avocado, and 13 of those grams of carbs are from fiber, which also is great. We're going to go into detail about the benefits of that. Very low in sugar, just about one gram, and four grams of protein, and then there's a little bit of... Or there is a good amount of vitamin A, vitamin C, a little bit of calcium, some iron. So it is packed full of nutrients that are great for us. So that's kind of the nutrition breakdown. Now let's go into the health benefits of avocados. They are high in fiber, which we said 13 grams of fiber in an entire avocado. That is amazing. 25% is soluble fiber, and 75% is insoluble fiber. Just a quick review, which if you want to know more about fiber, I have a whole episode just about fiber. So check it out. I'll give you the link at the end of the show. Insoluble fiber is good because it does not dissolve in our body, so it helps move things quicker through our digestive system. Soluble fiber is good because it's a prebiotic, which means it makes a really nice environment for the probiotics, helps with our gut health, helps our digestion, may help lower cholesterol, may help regulate our blood sugar. So lots of good things about both of these forms of fiber. So in general, high fiber diet is good for us for many reasons, and an avocado can really contribute to that. So yay for avocado. Lots of more reasons to eat avocados coming your way right now. So they're high in monounsaturated fats, which we talked about. The monounsaturated fat in avocado is oleic acid, and this has been found to be so great for our bodies. It can help reduce inflammation. It's good for our heart. The American Heart Association recommends that the fat that we consume should mostly be unsaturated fat. We're going to get that from the avocado, and some research has shown that avocados can also help lower our bad cholesterol. I'm going to go over this a little bit in a few more points, but it may help lower our bad cholesterol, which is a good thing. Next, avocados are high in potassium. Gram for gram, they have more potassium than bananas, which that's pretty cool. A nice option. One whole avocado gives us 28% of our daily needs of potassium, and some studies have shown that potassium can help with our blood pressure, help lower our blood pressure, which is good. It's good for our heart. Oh, this is great too. Because of the fat that's in the avocado, it can help us absorb the fat-soluble vitamins, because the fat-soluble vitamins need fat to help us absorb all of the great nutrients from the vitamins. Vitamin A, vitamin E, vitamin D, vitamin A, D, E, and K. A, D, E, and K, that's how I always remember it, and some antioxidants like the carotenoids. Those are all going to be absorbed better if you consume them with fat. Avocados are the vehicle. That's good. Back to the cholesterol conversation. They may help lower our cholesterol. There have been lots of studies done on it, on avocados. Some studies have found that it can help reduce our total cholesterol levels significantly. It could help lower our LDL cholesterol, which is the bad cholesterol. Some studies found that it can lower them by 22%. That's awesome. It can also help raise our HDL, which is the good cholesterol, which we do want to get higher, or be at a good level. It could help raise that by 11%. That's pretty awesome. Avocados can help protect our eyes. I know we talked earlier when I was going through the nutrition information, there's vitamin A in there. Vitamin A has the components that could help our eyes. People who eat foods that are rich in antioxidants, such as these, are less likely to get macular degeneration, which is an eye condition that can happen. That can help. This is interesting. I found out that most of the avocado's antioxidants are found in the darker green flesh that's closer to the peel, probably because that's what's closer to... The peel, that's what's absorbing all the good stuff from the sun and the roots and the vines of the tree. The dark green part has a little bit more, which I guess goes along with everything, too. The dark green leafy vegetables, the dark reds and oranges of the other vegetables are the ones that are going to have a lot of nutrients. Anyway, closer to the peel, has more nutrients. I thought that was interesting. Also, avocados are good for our brain. They have the vitamin E in them. That can help protect us against Alzheimer's disease and help with our memory. Also, it can help with our skin. We're exposed to all the UV rays and everything from the sun. Vitamin E can help our skin because of the antioxidants. It can also help strengthen... Avocados can also help strengthen our bones. Half of an avocado gives us about 15% of our needs for vitamin K. Vitamin K can help improve our bone density and help possibly prevent fractures. Also, avocados can help our blood sugar. Because they're so high in fiber, they're low in carbs. They have the healthy fats. That could be really great for us. They found that plant-based diets that include avocados could help drop our chances of developing type 2 diabetes by about 20% according to a study done by a Harvard study. Also, avocados may be good for our skin. I thought this was funny. One thing I read said that whether we use it as a mask on our face or if we're consuming it, it has the vitamin C that could help our skin. That's really good. So many good things about avocados. So, so, so many good things. They're delicious. Guacamole. If you didn't catch the very first episode I ever did on this show, I made a chocolate mousse out of avocado. It is so good. The base is avocado. Then you do cocoa powder, maple syrup, some vanilla. Sometimes I put peanut butter in it. It's so good. Then avocado toast. That's such a popular thing these days. You can put avocado on any sandwich. Avocado smoothies. So today, let's talk about that. We're going to make these avocado popsicles. I'm guessing there might be a little bit left over because the molds that I have are pretty small for the popsicles. So I was thinking, what a delicious beverage. So again, if you want a, if you want to do the recipe at home, it's in the link here. I'll also talk about it tomorrow in my Instagram post, but it's called avocado coconut popsicles. Check it out on relish.com. So let's make some popsicles and then I'm probably going to take a drink of it too because it sounds so good. So first off, we've got our blender and I'm just going to do half of the recipe because I don't have a whole lot of space in my little popsicle molds. We've got six slots here. Okay. So half the recipe, I'm going to do half of an avocado. The recipe calls for a whole avocado. So I'm just going to spoon that into the blender and popsicles are such a great way to consume smoothies. Like sometimes I make smoothies, but it's a little bit too much for all three of us in our house. And I, sometimes I just pour it into the popsicle mold. It makes a delicious dessert and healthy. Okay. So we've got that. And then two and one thirds cup of unsweetened almond coconut milk. So that's kind of more of the beverage. So I have coconut milk, like the kind that you get in the can. So I'm going to pour this here. So we're going to do one cup, maybe a little more than one cup. So what do we have here? We have half of a cup. So this is the coconut milk in the can. Then I'm going to use some almond milk that I have over here to round it out. Okay. And let's see, we're going to go up to a little bit more than a cup because we need one and one sixth of a cup. Okay. We'll do that. If I need more, we know where to get more liquid. Okay. Yum. This is going to be delicious. So yeah, you definitely have to like coconut for this recipe. And then it says six tablespoons of sugar. I'm going to do three tablespoons because we're cutting it in half of maple syrup. I'm just going to eyeball it. So this is one tablespoon, two tablespoons, three tablespoons. So I like the maple instead of sugar, a little bit better for us. Now it calls for half a cup of unsweetened shredded coconut flakes. I don't think that my son's going to like that. So I'm going to skip that part and I'm just going to put some lime juice in it because I feel like that'll help preserve the color of the popsicle as well. So I'm going to do one lime juice into here. And yeah, so one half, second half. All right. I think because we're not putting the sweetened coconut in, I'm going to add a little more maple syrup. Okay. There we go. Okay. I don't think I'm going to need more liquid, so that's good. Here we go. Excuse the loud noise. It'll just be quick. Okay. The lime smells so, so good. Actually, I'm going to put a little bit more liquid. Okay. There we go. Now that looks good. And that looks like it's going to be a delicious smoothie as well. Okay. So I'm going to put this in the sink. Okay. And then we'll just pour it into the popsicle molds. I'll step a little closer. Okay. There we go. There we go. Whoops. A little high, but that's okay. And I'm going to freeze these, and I will post the outcome on Instagram tomorrow, this week, probably tomorrow. And one more little pour. Okay. So we've got our molds. I'm going to take a taste of this because I think it's going to be really good. I'm just going to pour it into this coconut milk jar. Give it a taste. That is delicious. That is really, really delicious. It is like a dessert. That is like a dessert. It's really rich. That's really good. And I like the lime addition. I highly recommend adding the lime. It gives it a little tang. Okay. So that's the story on avocado. I'd also like to tell you that I just wrote a smoothie book. It's called The Smoothie Book, and it is for sale this week. This is the book. It's very exciting. It has a hundred recipes, all different smoothies, all different kinds of smoothies, savory smoothies, a smoothie for every season, secret ingredient smoothies, green smoothies, smoothies with seeds, so many different kinds. So check out my website. You can buy it there. I'll show you my website. And I have all the episodes from Relish listed on there, a link to the YouTube page with all the other episodes of Relish. Okay. Let's see. So it's called alishurcliffwellness.com. Make sure I spelled that right. Check it out. Interesting. Okay. Hopefully that works, but you can see the link there, alishurcliffwellness.com. And yes, check out the book. I'm going to be on a show on Portland. I'll also put a link or information about that on there and my Instagram on Thursday at two o'clock Pacific time. Very exciting. A new show to talk about, a news show to talk about the book. So thank you so much for tuning in. Always happy to see everybody here on the show. Avocados, so many good things about them. So many great varieties. Haas is the most popular one that we use today and good for our heart, high in fiber, high in potassium, may help lower our cholesterol, protect our eyes, may help our brains, strengthen our bones, help our blood sugar. So many great things about avocado. So thank you all for joining. I hope you have a great rest of your day. I'll see you next time. Let me know if you make these popsicles or make them into a Okay. Have a good one, everybody. Bye.