Avocado — Source of healthy fats

Enoch Darfah Frimpong Health Aug - 17 - 2013 , 11:28

People have discovered that avocados don't just taste great (in the right manner of preparation), but they also come with a decent amount of health benefits.

Valuable fat

Not all fat is bad for your body, and monounsaturated fat in particular is what constitutes the first health benefit of an avocado.

In a typical avocado, most of the calories you receive come from monounsaturated fat. The monounsaturated fat in an avocado is healthy for you.

Foods like avocados that contain monounsaturated fat lessen your LDL cholesterol, which is harmful to your body.

On the other hand, HDL cholesterol has been called "good cholesterol," and there is speculation that monounsaturated fat actually raises this type of cholesterol.

Fibre content

The second reason that you ought to be reminding yourself to eat avocados is their relatively high fibre content. A typical avocado will contain both insoluble and soluble fibre; that alone makes it very powerful, since not many foods can brag about containing both kinds of fibre.

The breakdown in an average avocado is approximately 75 per cent insoluble fibre to 25 per cent soluble fibre. The benefits of each type of fibre are already well known.

Insoluble fibre is great at cleaning out your bowels by way of increasingly efficient bowel movements.

Not only will you stand a lesser chance of getting constipated, but you also will reduce your chance of getting colorectal cancer, since your colon will be cleaned out effectively.

Soluble fibre is great for appetite control. It has the effect of making you feel full, because it turns into a gel that sits in your stomach for a while when it comes into contact with water.

Vitamins

The presence of vitamins makes up the third health benefit of an average avocado. The vitamins that you can find in an avocado are B vitamins along with vitamin K and vitamin E.

B vitamins help your body's metabolism and its maintenance of a healthy skin tone, while vitamin K plays a fundamental role in making sure that your bones grow properly and that your bone density is maintained in later life.

Vitamin E is necessary to avoid conditions like retinopathy.

Source: www.fitday.com

Avocado prawn salad

By Barbara Sai Djangmah

Ingredients

•4 large lettuce leaves, washed and cut up

•3 ripe avocados

•2 lemons

•24 large cooked, peeled prawns

•Finely chopped medium size onion

•2 fresh tomatoes

•½ teaspoon ground black pepper

•Pinch of salt

•2 tablespoons extra light virgin olive oil

Method

• To make salad dressing: mix oil, salt, black pepper and juice of one lemon in a small bowl.

• Combine prawns with diced onion, black pepper and dressing. Cover and set aside in fridge.

• Wash and dry lettuce, cut up and place on a serving platter.

• Cut avocado in half, peel and cut up into thick chunks. Tip: Squeeze remaining lemon on avocado to prevent darkening. Arrange avocado on top of lettuce.

• Take prawns out of fridge and spoon onto bed of lettuce and avocado.

• Slice tomato and arrange nicely on top.

• Serve with bread rolls or crackers.

NB: You can garnish salad with wedges of lime or lemon or cooked whole prawns if so desired.