Avocado or some people call it “alligator pear” is a one of the most nutritious food, some people try to avoid it for it’s high fat content, but people must know that 1 medium avocado about 200 g has 322 calories and has 30 g of fat but most of the fat is monounsaturated fat which helps lower LDL, and cholesterol, plus its high nutritional value, it has a about 20 of vitamins and minerals including vitamin K, folate that helps lower the risk of heart attack which makes avocado a very heart-friendly food, it also has potassium, vitamin B6, vitamin C, and fiber as well.

Avocados contain potassium even more then bananas which can help to reduce risk of high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke. Oleic acid a monounsaturated fat is a very important content in avocado that may help lower cholesterol, it contains omega-3 in addition to vitamin E, and beta carotene, which forms vitamin A.

You can see how much 1 avocado can provide you with vitamins and minerals of the recommended daily value DV% through the attached picture.

Photo source: whfoods.com

Avocado is also a good baby food, it’s tender, mashable, almost free-sodium and free cholesterol and it is good for the baby to its content of lots af vitamins and minerals as I named them previously.

Also avocado has a moderate amount of alpha-carotene which is best absorbed in the presence of fat, since avocado is a natural source of monounsaturated fat makes an ideal, self-contained heart health food package. Like other carotenoids, its antioxidant power help it to protect against oxidation of bad cholesterol (LDL) in the body so reducing the risk of atherosclerosis over time.

How much to eat?

1/2 a medium avocado weighs 2 1/2 oz (flesh only) serve with slice fruits or tomatoes or in salads as guacomale.

Give it a try, use mashed avocados instead of spreading mayo or butter or cream cheese on your bagel or sandwich, it really makes difference in calorie content plus you will be taking healthy fats instead of saturated fat and maybe trans fat. So avocado may be included in a healthy diet as a substitution to bad fats.

Since avocado is high in calories so you have to eat it in moderation, eating anything should be in moderation even healthy foods, because too much of any food will lead to high calorie content at the end.

]]> http://intodiet.com/2009/05/15/avocado/feed/ 1 http://intodiet.com/2009/05/03/acai-berry-and-weight-loss/ http://intodiet.com/2009/05/03/acai-berry-and-weight-loss/#comments Mon, 04 May 2009 00:49:39 +0000 riham http://intodiet.com/?p=273

We’ve all heard about Acai berry (pronounced ah-sigh-ee) it got so popular recently because of two things, #1 because of its health benefits that we will talk about it later, #2 because of the claims that lots of companies say to market their products, such as lose 30 pounds in 3 months or about the other miracles that their product do, or whatever.

What is Acai Berry?

Acai berry is a purple fruit grows on Acai palms that grow fast in the Central and South American Amazon forest, including Brazil. The growing popularity of Acai berry led to a creation of different brands of Acai supplements that contain only Acai berries or mixed with other fruits, health claims on these products include weight loss, detoxifying, wrinkle-fighting, higher energy levels and superior levels of antioxidants.
Research studies about Acai berry shows that it is listed recentely as a latest superfood, because it is rich in nutrients including antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, oleic acid and potassium, to name a few.
According to the FDA studies Acai berry is high in essential fatty acids and omegas – 60% Oleic omega 9 – a monosaturated fatty acid which helps to lower LDL (harmful cholesterol) while maintaining HDL (beneficial cholesterol), 12% linoleic acid (omega 6) a polyunsaturated essential fatty acid which has also been found to lower LDL while maintaining HDL.
Acai also contains many valuable phytosterols. Sterols are compounds of plant cell membranes providing numerous benefits to human body, namely the reduction of blood plasma cholesterol.
So according to the FDA studies Acai berry may help in heart disease through lowering the LDL, cholesterol, and like other berries that have lots of antioxidants that may help in preventing cancer.
Some of the claims that Acai products include: anti-aging, improved sleep, increased energy, Others include improved mental focus, improved digestion, improved blood circulation and vision, and stronger bones and muscles. There isn’t any clear evidence so far to tell whether it’s true or not.

Acai berry and weight loss

There haven’t been any studies to show that Acai berry does anything to boost metabolism or enhance the reduction of body fat or decrease appetite or anything like that, at this point there haven’t been any human studies with Acai berry, so for that reason we can not say actually whether or not it is a good weight loss supplement more than likely it won’t harm you but it’s not necessarily to enhance your weight loss, so if you want to try Acai berry, you’d probably better to try the berry itself or the juice rather than buying the supplement, the supplement is going to be an extract, you don’t know the level exactly you are getting from the fruit itself. So there isn’t any studies so far that shows that Acai berry may or may not help in losing weight but in the same time there isn’t any negative side effects associated with it.
There isn’t any magic key for losing weight as we all know but lot’s of Acai products claim to help in losing weight, those products are not approved by the FDA yet and the FDA didn’t declare anything about its efficiency in losing weight.

At the end eat Acai berries as you eat all kind of fruits for its nutrition, at least it is not harmful it’s full of vitamins and healthy fats so enjoy your Acai berries, but one bad thing about Acai berries that it’s a bit expensive, and everyone is watching their food-budget, your hard-earned money is maybe better to be spent on buying a variety of fruits and vegetables to get a big variety of different vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.