In Praise of Avocados

Avocados are both healthy and delicious. When I am not fasting, I typically eat an avocado a day in my giant salad. I am glad I am not the only fan of avocados. Bee Wilson, in her delightful February 16, 2018 pocket history of avocados, "What Explains Our Mania for Avocados," writes:

In the U.S., demand for avocados is now so frenzied that it threatens to outstrip supply. The average American consumes 7 pounds of avocado a year, up from 1 pound in 1974. By 2016, annual retail sales of avocados in the U.S. had reached $1.6 billion, according to the Hass Avocado Board.

Bee agrees with my assessment of avocados:

Few other ingredients taste at once so dreamily rich and so healthy. ...

Avocado is one of the few modern foods that manages to straddle our ideas of both comfort and health.

Among the many cultural, technological and economic factors that have driven the increasing popularity of avocados, a key factor has been Americans beginning to turn away from the lowfat orthodoxy has gripped us for so long. As Bee writes:  

Our avocado-love has also been driven by cultural changes, large and small: the popularity of tacos, the rise of the hipster cafe, the rehabilitation of fat as a health food. ...

In the 1980s, at the height of low-fat orthodoxy, avocado was regarded as dangerously fattening, and the wholesale price plummeted to 10 cents a pound. 

Even better, in many circles nowadays, people realize both

  • avocados are healthy
  • sugar is unhealthy. 

 

Don't miss these other posts on diet and health and on fighting obesity:

Also see the last section of "Five Books That Have Changed My Life" and the podcast "Miles Kimball Explains to Tracy Alloway and Joe Weisenthal Why Losing Weight Is Like Defeating Inflation." If you want to know how I got interested in diet and health and fighting obesity and a little more about my own experience with weight gain and weight loss, see my post "A Barycentric Autobiography."