Avocado - fruit of an amateur. Some people like it soft, oily flesh, others are perplexed, not knowing what the beauty of this fruit. Due to the high content of fat caloric avocado more than other calorie fruit. However, these are not useless calories - Avocado is rich in nutrients needed to maintain health.

Alligator pear

Homeland avocado - South and Central America. Even in the third millennium BC, the Aztecs began to cultivate the plant, which they called "auakatl", which means "Forest Oil." Today, avocado is grown in many tropical countries, as for the normal growth of a tree requires high temperature and high humidity. Many fans grow avocados at home and as an ornamental plant.

In English-speaking countries avocado is often called alligator pear. The shape of the fetus really pear-shaped, with the similarity of the alligator avocado gives tough skin dark green, brown and sometimes almost black What colors combined with black: less darkness and pathos . Peel the avocado can be smooth or wrinkled, in food it is not used.

Under the tough rind hiding a large avocado pit and the pulp soft greenish or cream with a pleasant spicy aroma. Unripe fruit is quite solid, the taste they resemble a pumpkin. Mature avocado also has a light walnut-spicy aroma and flavor reminiscent of the taste of butter with herbs. Stone is not suitable for food. Moreover, it contains toxins that are oxidized in air, so it is advisable to remove it as soon as the fruit is cut.

But these are not berries compote cook and prepare desserts - savory avocado pulp is much more suitable for savory snacks Low calorie snacks . The weight of a fetus can be from one hundred grams to kilograms, the size - from seven to twenty centimeters.

Nutritional value

Avocado most high-calorie fruits and vegetables. One hundred grams of this berry contains two hundred calories. But that is no reason to abandon the avocado and expel the fetus from the diet. In addition to the calorie avocados it gives the body vitamin E, and vitamin B complex B, calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron, phosphorus and zinc. Small amounts contained in avocado vitamins A, C, D, K and P.

High energy value due to the fact that in a lot of avocado oil - from fourteen to thirty percent. Useful monounsaturated fats are easily digested by the body. Avocados are very useful for the health of blood vessels and circulatory system. These benefits reduce the level of cholesterol in the blood to help prevent a heart attack. Due to the high content of antioxidants, and are useful for the skin, the fruits can be used as a topically as masks and inwardly.

Carbohydrates in avocados are relatively few - seven to eight per cent protein is even less - about two percent. Fiber in the fruits of almost no avocado so very easy to digest. However, the high fat content makes the fruits unsuitable for feeding of patients with gastrointestinal diseases.

But those who want to lose weight, eat avocado, despite its high caloric value, it is possible and necessary. Of course, the abuse these berries should not be, but in small amounts of avocado will not lead to fullness. The fruit can be used as a replacement for a variety of fatty foods not bearing the body to anything useful.

Avocados in dietary cooking

Avocados are well saturated. A small portion of salad or snack from the fruit of this will be enough to eat. Avocados are perfectly combined with dietary foods such as fish, seafood and white chicken meat. Avocado include in the diet can be, but other fatty foods, especially those containing animal fats, and the need to limit. In particular, it will have to give up fatty meat, poultry with skin cooked, delicious cheeses.

In air, the flesh of the avocado oxidizes, changes color and becomes less tasty. To avoid this effect, fruit juices seasoned with lemon or lime, which together give the avocado juicy acidity.

The pulp of ripe fruit successfully replace fatty sauces, pates and "spreads" for sandwiches Sandwiches. Pros and cons . For example, a traditional sandwich with butter and salted fish can be converted into a useful delicacy replacing white bread loaf with bran, fatty salmon - a lean salmon, butter and instead use mashed avocado.

Avocado is popular in Japanese cuisine, which is considered one of the safest from the dietary point of view. For example, the taste of avocados complements rolls "California". There are recipes and vegetarian rolls, which contain relatively few calories. For example, caloric rolls with avocado - only one hundred and six calories per hundred grams. In such ROLL contains twenty-one grams of carbohydrate, two grams of protein and about one and a half grams of fat.

Selecting avocado

The most common mistake when cooking appetizers avocado - the use of unripe, hard fruit. Avocados are removed from the tree before they are ripe berries - it allows to keep the fruits for a long time. After harvesting avocados ripen several weeks at room temperature, and only then are suitable for the preparation of delicious dishes.

Determine the degree of maturity of the avocado is very easy - just press on the skin with your finger. At the ripe fruit of the elastic will immediately pit, which, however, will quickly disappear. If the pit does not disappear, it means that the avocado ripe and may have already started to deteriorate. If the fruit is so tight that the pressure on him is impossible - "alligator pear" is not yet ripe, it needs to lie down for a while before using for cooking.

Maria Bykov

Related Articles

Avocado salad with shrimp: elegant exotica