Avocados can help with your cholestrol
It’s all in the type of fat. Don’t be fooled that avocado fat can’t be good for you. The opposite is actually true which is why the avocado cholesterol diet does such a great job of lowering cholesterol.
That’s because avocado fat is a monounsaturated fat which makes the heart happy. Monounsaturated fat helps to raise HDL levels which is the good cholesterol that protects your arteries and cleans them.
While at the same time it lowers your LDL levels which is the bad cholesterol that can cause artery blockages. That’s why you want to raise your HDL whenever possible. It’s important that you understand the different types of fat.
Saturated Fats – these are the fats that are harmful to you increasing your cholesterol levels.
Polyunsaturated Fats – these fats don’t increase cholesterol levels nor do they lower them. They are considered harmless.
Monounsaturated Fats – like the fat found in avocados are beneficial to you lowering your cholesterol levels.
The nutritional facts associated with Avocados include 22g of Fat with only 3g of saturated fat, no transfats, and 11mg of sodium. There is 13g of carbohydrates, 10g of dietary fiber, 1g of sugar, and 3g of protein. That’s a lot of health packed into one fruit. More nutritional information is available online.
You can buy avocadoes in most grocery stores, but you can even grow your own avacodo fruit trees. It’s really quite simple. Just open the avocado and take the pit out from the center. Rinse the pit and blot it dry. There are excellent how to grow your own avocado tree online, so why not give it a try?
A study was recently conducted in Brisbane Australia. The results showed that middle age women who ate avocadoes every day for three weeks were able to improve their cholesterol levels by 8% and even more important was the fact that the HDL cholesterol ratio improved 15%. All that from one fruit. Impressive!
Heart patients can expect to cut their risk of heart attack by 10% to 20% by eating avocados and they will also decrease their risk of death by 4% to 8% over a 3 to 5 year period. Those numbers would be hard to beat even with a pill. What could be better? Substantial health benefits combined with great taste.
We mentioned the monounsaturated fat but Avocados hold another secret – Beta-sitosterol. Beta who? Is that a new type of Guacamole? No but if it was it would sell like hot cakes because of its power to lower cholesterol. This is a beneficial plant based fat that is packed with more cholesterol smashing qualities.
It works by blocking the amount of cholesterol absorbed from food. The avocado is from the persea Americana and it has higher levels of beta-sitosterol than any other fruit. It’s too bad this nutritional information wasn’t available at a much earlier time. Imagine all the people it could have helped.
Beta sitosterol is actually a combination of natural components which includes brassicasterol, campersterol, stigmasterol, and beta-sitosterol common in many plants but in the largest quantities in the avocado.
If you don’t want to eat plain ole avocados there are plenty of recipes available online where you can enjoy the nutritional value that avocados have to offer.
Heart disease including cholesterol is a big health concern. Depending on prescriptions drugs isn’t really the answer. Prevention through our food system and through nutritional supplements is a much better option. Why not add avocadoes to your diet and start to enjoy the benefits.
