People are afraid of eating avocados because of the fat content, yet this fat will lower your cholesterol. It will slash your risk of heart attack by more than a third if you replace as little as 5 percent of your saturated fat intake from meat, butter or cheese with monounsaturated fat such as avocado.

Avocados are also high in beta-sisterol which blocks cholesterol absorption from food.

Beta -sisterol is the same plant sterol you find in margarines such as Flora Pro-activ.

To top it all avocados also contain the powerful ant- oxidant glutathione which is a powerful anticancer compound.

The Avocado is a fruit with a great concentration of healthy fat.

Many different varieties appear on the shelves during the year.

The bright green smooth skinned Fuerte and the dark coloured Hass are the most common varieties and in spring you can  also see the round Reed.

If you compare Avocados to low fat margarine, avocados are between 20 to 25 percent fat, while low fat margarines are still 55 percent fat.

More than half of the avocado fat is monounsaturated and although you find more potassium in half a medium avocado than in your normal banana, the avocado contains very little sodium.

By contrast even the reduced salt low-fat margarines do not meet the criterias for a low salt diet; so using avocado as a spread instead of margarine is a good idea.

I highly recommend that you eat avocados, but not to add them to the other fats you eat.

You should replace and substitute other fats with avocados.

For instance use it as a mayonnaise, with a squeeze of lemon.

The Key avocado nutrients are

monounsaturated fat, sterols, vitamin A, folate (a B vitamin), potassium,

So how much of it should you eat?

A Hass avocado is about 2000 kj, cut an avocado in half, then cut it into five pieces. Each piece will be 200 kilojoules.

By comparison a tablespoon of mayonnaise is more than 200kj and not as filling.

How to buy an avocado

If you want to eat it the same day, it will need to be ripe.

To test if it is soft and ready to eat, press it gently near the stem.

Otherwise, buy an avocado firm but not too hard.

How to store avocados

Keep your avocados in a fruit bowl if it needs ripening or in the fridge if it is already there.

To speed up the ripening put the avocado in a paper bag.

Some varieties still look bright green even when they are ripe while the Hass gets very dark.

You can keep the other half of your avocado by brushing the flesh with lemon or spraying it lightly with oil spray, then covering with plastic, it will keep for two days in the fridge.

If scooping some avocado, keep the peep in one half and after scooping some of the other half, bring the two halves back together so it looks like the full fruit again, then cover with foil, no oil or lemon needed.

It will keep for two or three days in the fridge without browning.

You can also mash an avocado, add two tablespoons of lemon juice and then freeze it in an air tight container for up to four months.

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