CHRONIC. Here is a very fatty food, not very ecological and expensive. But avocado is excellent for health. The explanations of Professor Boris Hansel.
By Boris Hansel, with Guillaume Paret (video)
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Every Friday, find on Le Point.fr the nutrition chronicle of Professor Boris Hansel, endocrinologist and nutritionist at the Bichat hospital in Paris.
L’avocado is a very oily fruit. It contains about 20 g of fat, the equivalent of 2 tablespoons of oil! So, intuitively, we say to ourselves that it is better to avoid eating it if we pay attention to our weight or our cholesterol. And yet, it is exactly the opposite. Avocado does not make you fat! Epidemiological studies even show something incredible: people who consume it have a lower weight than those who do not eat it. Better: it is perhaps responsible for a loss of weight, in particular on the level of the belly!
But then, how to explain that this fatty and therefore very caloric food does not make you lose the line?
There are several reasons for this:
First, avocado contains fiber, undigested constituents that have a satiating effect. About 6-7g in half an avocado is 20% of the recommended amount of fiber for the day. Then, it contains mannoheptulose, a molecule from the carbohydrate family that also has a satiating effect. A carbohydrate, yes, but which has nothing to do with those which, with sugar, raise the level of glucose in the blood! So if you eat avocado, even every day, you will have less appetite to eat other things, so you won’t gain weight!
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Regarding the effect of avocado on cholesterol, you can rest easy. The fats contained in the avocado have a neutral, even favorable effect on the blood cholesterol level! As for its effect on cardiovascular disease, the lights are green! For example, people who eat half an avocado at least twice a week have a 20% reduced risk of coronary heart disease.
Of course, not everything is rosy with this fruit, especially if we approach the subject from the angle of ecology and purchasing power. But that’s another subject.
In practice, eating avocados regularly is not a health problem, quite the contrary. Eating one, two or even three avocados a week can be part of the ideal diet to live a long and healthy life! And, if one day we manage to produce avocados without inconvenience for the planet and at affordable prices, then there will be no reason to deprive ourselves of them!