The avocado’s seductive charms are more to do with its velvety texture and its rich, rounded, mouth-filling creaminess than its mild, green flavour. The two main varieties sold here are the Hass, which has a darker, rougher skin, and the Fuerte, which is smoother and greener. Some US connoisseurs swear that the more fragile Fuerte is superior to Hass, but because its skin is not so robust, it is often picked so hard and underripe to prevent it from being damaged in transport that it never ripens up properly. So in practice, Hass avocados are often the better bet. As a rule of thumb, the larger the avocado, the better the eating quality.
Avocados need to be properly ripe to be experienced at their best. The best way to do this is to leave them at room temperature for anything from three days to a week and feel them gently from time to time. You can speed up the process by putting them next to bananas, or in a brown paper bag. Avocados shouldn’t be refrigerated until they are ripe as the cold will stop them ripening, although ripe avocados will keep for some days in the fridge. A definite, all-round ‘give’ under the skin is an indication of ripeness, but you can never quite tell until you cut them open: avocados are a lottery.
Avocados shouldn’t have a mesh of fibrous grey threads. This means that they have been affected by a rot that should never develop in good-quality fruits. These fibres won’t do you any harm, but they are technically a fault rather than merely a consequence of overripeness. If you have the energy, take them back and ask for a replacement.
Never feel the need to be inventive with avocados. Recipes such as avocado soup, avocado mousse and baked avocado are a waste of both avocado and effort.
Things to do with avocados
• Use them in a salsa with over-ripe mango (preferably the very aromatic Indian or Pakistani fruits), finely chopped red onion and fresh coriander.
• Combine chunks of avocado with sliced chicory and thin slices of ripe pineapple. Dressed lightly with oil and vinegar, this is a good winter salad.
• Serve ripe avocados, mashed with lemon juice and a little skinned, deseeded and diced tomato, with crab meat.
• Fill bread rolls with avocado mashed with lemon, sea salt, black pepper, mustard cress and either potted shrimp or canned salmon.
• Combine leftover cooked, chopped chicken or turkey with chopped avocado and a little mayonnaise or soured cream. Serve with watercress and thin rashers of crisply grilled bacon or pancetta.
• Make a smoothie using a small amount of ripe avocado, pineapple or pineapple juice, natural yogurt or coconut milk and a little lime juice.
Are avocados good for me?
Avocados are largely composed of oil, mainly the monounsaturated sort which research suggests protects against heart disease and lowers blood pressure. The oils in avocados make them an excellent food for giving a feeling of fullness that can help quell the urge to over-eat. They are also a rich source of antioxidant vitamins, most notably vitamin E, which research suggests can help reduce the incidence of heart disease, certain cancers and strokes. Avocados have more soluble fibre than any other fruit, and this slows down the rate at which sugar is released into the bloodstream. They contain a number of useful minerals too, such as iron, copper and folate, and are a particularly good source of potassium, which helps to moderate blood pressure. This in turn may help protect against cardiovascular diseases such as heart disease and stroke. Several carotenes, such as zeaxantin and lutein, are found in avocados, which are thought to help keep the eyes healthy. Some research suggests that these carotenes also boost the absorption of micronutrients from other foods and combine with vitamin E to inhibit the development of certain cancers. In addition, avocados contain glutathione, consumption of which has been associated with reduced risk of some cancers.
How are avocados grown?
Avocados grow on trees in warm climates where the winter temperature is mild, and there isn’t too much wind, because they are susceptible to frost. One crop each year is cultivated then harvested by hand. The avocados we buy tend to come from South Africa, the US, Spain, Peru, Chile and Brazil. They are harvested when they are mature, but still hard and underripe and these are generally sent by boat. Others are tree-ripened, or pre-ripened by being exposed to ethylene gas – like the gas given off by ripe bananas – then air-freighted.
THE CHOCOLATE OF FRUITS
The changing fortunes of the avocado speak volumes about how nutritional orthodoxy is first made and then unmade. When avocados appeared in our shops in the early 1960s, their foreignness made them highly desirable: to eat them was a way of demonstrating gastronomic sophistication. By the 1970s, avocados had been hybridized with that iconic 1960s dish, prawns Marie Rose, and a half avocado filled with prawns had became a restaurant and dinner party favourite.
But by the 1980s there was a question mark over the desirability of avocados. The public health dogma that dominated on both sides of the Atlantic, which then became enshrined in various popular diets, dictated that all fat was bad, and that calorie-heavy foods should be avoided. So oil-rich, calorific avocados – a large avocado can contain 400 calories – came into the line of fire. Avocados were seen as sinful and fattening, the wicked temptress of dieters everywhere, the chocolate of fruits.
Come the 1990s, this broad-brush, anti-fat guidance was weakening. It began to be acknowledged that far from being bad for the heart, monounsaturated fat might actually be good for it. So instead of being full of ‘bad’ fat, avocados became full of ‘good’ fat. But unable to make a total break from the low-fat/low-calorie prescription, the new nutritional gospel was subtly changed to say that avocado could be a healthy food, but only if eaten in moderation.
In the last decade, diligent slimmers and would-be healthy eaters up and down the land have continued to approach the avocado with caution and found themselves measuring out recommended servings of two tablespoonfuls of avocado, or composing salads that called for a sixth of an avocado, or using avocado as a ‘healthier’ alternative to butter or mayonnaise. Meanwhile, research that supports the all-round nutritional desirability of this fruit has stacked up. Some studies have found that eating avocados is associated not with weight gain, but weight loss. Increasingly, as more research explores its array of micronutrients, the avocado is now commended as a healthy, ‘nutrient-dense’ (nutritionally rich) food, although the habitual resistance to eating it in any quantity still lingers on.
Currently, the old simplistic dogma that all fat is bad is being unpicked. This was inevitable, given the absence of good evidence to support it and the growing body of evidence to challenge it. As we continue to struggle with the ever growing global problem of obesity, and low-fat/low-cal advice doesn’t appear to be working, more research is focused on the question of satiety: the notion that eating more, not less, of foods that satisfy appetite may be the best long-term recipe for a healthy body weight. Bathed in this new nutritional light, the oily, filling avocado looks poised to secure its nascent ‘superfood’ status.
Who knows how avocados will, or won’t, fit into nutritional orthodoxy in the future? And who cares? You may prefer just to take the view that avocados are a nutritious, whole food that people in warm countries have eaten for millennia without becoming obese or ill, and help yourself to a half, or even a whole, avocado when you feel like it.
Are avocados a green choice?
Avocado trees absorb and store carbon from the environment, which makes them a sustainable, environmentally friendly crop. These tall trees provide a wildlife-friendly habitat and a protective canopy that allows other crops to flourish below. Their roots also help stabilize the soil and prevent soil erosion after heavy rains and floods, extreme weather events that are becoming more frequent as a result of global warming.
However, all the avocados we eat are imported and travel very long distances, which is the opposite of environmentally friendly. That said, there is no substitute for avocados, so many people will feel that they will continue to eat them anyway. If you eat a lot of avocados, you might want to think about reducing your consumption. Choose hard avocados that have been shipped and then ripen them at home rather than pre-ripened avocados that have been air-freighted. Pre-ripened avocados also tend to come swathed in absurd amounts of unnecessary packaging when they have their own natural packaging: their skin. They cost more and are not always reliably ripe, despite the claim on the label.
Will avocados break the bank?
Unless they are discounted, avocados are rarely cheap, but as long as you don’t eat too many of them, the cost is not that significant. You will pay a hefty premium for both the air-freighted ‘ripe and ready to eat’ sort, and gimmicky small avocados. You can get stunning avocado bargains from greengrocers and markets if you buy them when they are beginning to be overripe. Even ripe avocados with dark patches on the skin can be quite good, if you just cut away any bad bits.