Avocados: Your healthy-fat friends

From Zone Diet Advantage:

After the crop of summer fruits dwindles, look for avocados in stores. While the harvest season for avocados is year-round, avocado festivals start this month, when precious little truly fresh produce is available. One of the most nutritious of fruits—so much so that it's often mislabeled a vegetable—avocados have 65 percent more potassium than bananas and are loaded with magnesium, folate, fiber, riboflavin and vitamins C, E, and B6. Ounce for ounce, they also contain more disease-fighting phytonutrients than any other popular fruit.

Because avocados also contain the good kind of fat (monosaturated), Dr. Sears places them high on his list of "favorable" fats—but note that he recommends eating them in small amounts, with a tablespoon equal to one fat block. Here are tips for buying, storing, and preparing avocados:

• Avocados are usually picked and sold hard and unripe. Give the fruit a few days to ripen at room temperature. To speed the process, place in a brown paper bag with an apple or banana, both of which off-gas ethylene, a ripening agent.
• You can't judge ripeness by color: The Hass avocado will turn dark green or black as it ripens, while smooth-skinned varieties retain their lighter-green hue. Avoid blemished fruit.
• Ripe, uncut fruit can be refrigerated for two or three days.

To slice avocados, use the California Avocado Commission's official method:

1. Cut the ripe avocado lengthwise around the seed. Rotate the halves to separate.
2. Remove the seed by sliding the tip of a spoon gently underneath and lifting out. The other common seed-extraction method—striking the seed with a knife—is dangerous and is not recommended.
3. Peel the fruit by placing the cut side down and removing the skin with a knife or your fingers, starting at the small end. Or simply scoop out the avocado meat with a spoon. Be sure to sprinkle all cut surfaces with lemon or lime juice to prevent discoloration.
   

Learn more at the Zone Diet Advantage...