Guacamole: friend or foe?
Are Avocados Okay?
Doctor's Note
Also check out Are Avocados Bad for You?
Update: In 2017, I did a couple of new videos about avocados: The Effects of Avocados and Red Wine on Meal-Induced Inflammation and Are Avocados Healthy?
And see my follow-up blog post: Any update on the scary in vitro avocado data?
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Now in Volume 5 of your Latest in Clinical Nutrition, you put the jury out on avos saying they may destroy healthy cells along with cancer cells because they seem to do so in a petri dish.
God help us! What can we vegans enjoy if not an avocado? Do I have to have cancer to enjoy an avocado?
Oh, I know! That was definitely one of the shockers of the year. I’ll post those two avocado videos from the new DVD here on the site. Basically there’s a natural insecticide compound called persin produced by the avocado tree that gets into the fruit that a new study suggests may cause chromosomal damage. But this was in vitro, meaning outside the body (like in a test tube or petri dish). Even people who love guacamole don’t shoot it up like heroin, so before that avocado compound makes its way to our body tissues it must survive stomach acid, digestive enzymes, and the detoxifying might of our liver. So the jury is indeed still out, so I recommend moderating our intake of avocados until we know more. Sorry–don’t shoot the messenger!
hemp?
There’s still lots of healthy vegan food you can enjoy. I have avocados once in a while as guacamole, but it’s definitely not a staple of my diet.
I run http://www.LowFatVeganChef.com if you’re looking for oil free, low fat whole food recipes.
Whaaaaaa!
cant believe hemp is not on this website
For more context, check out my associated blog post, Stool Size and Breast Cancer Risk.
I have diabetes and sometime get this weird sensation on my left chest near the left arm and travels all way down the arm. I have cut all oil and educated my wife to cook without oils. I am almost vegan. The question is should I eat avocado and should I eat nuts and seeds and how much. Thank you.
You previously stated that the insecticide and fungicide compound found naturally in avocados (persin) may damage the DNA of normal cells, as well as cancer cells” but these studies were not conducted in vivo so maybe, maybe not. As soon as I adopted a WFPBD avocados became one of my favorite foods and I was quite dismayed to learn that I was ingesting an insecticide and fungicide that may be altering my DNA. I think a real life study is in order here, one that examines how the DNA of some of the first cells to come in contact with whole avocados in our bodies are affected, namely our own intestinal cells and gut bacteria which end up in our stool. Pretty easy experiment I would think…