Your Daily Facts about Avacados
Avocados (or by their botanical name, Persea americana), are also known as palta or aguacate in Spanish speaking countries, and are affectionately called “alligator pear” due to their pear shape and bumpy skin.
This fruit is native to Mexico, South and Central America, and belongs to the same plant family of Laurel (Lauraceae): it has a soft, buttery texture and the flesh contains an egg-shaped seed in the center, with a casing called pit.
Originally called “testicle” (or ahuacatl) by Aztecs, this delicious fruit is believed to have been selected by humans, since it was biologically linked to dinosaurs and other large animals: no current animal can eat a fruit so large, and the high amounts of fats and calories, not to mension the size of the seed (it’s as large as an egg) all suggest that it was probably dinosaurs who used to eat avocados.
The avocado flesh is hard when harvested and takes about six to nine days to ripen and soften to a buttery texture. It tastes like a cross between a hard-boiled egg yolk and butter.
Like banana, the density of avocado flesh is filling and acts as a digestible slow-burning fuel, providing energy for growing children.
Because of its high carbohydrates and protein content, mashed avocado is the perfect nourishing food for babies who are beginning to take solids.
The most common types are: Bacon, Fuerte, Gwen, Hass, Pinkerton, Reed, and Zutano, with many chefs having a particular preference for the Hass variety.
Avocados are a fruit, not a vegetable, belonging to the genus Persea in the Lauraceae family
Brazilians add avocados to ice cream
Filipinos puree avocados with sugar and milk for a dessert drink
California produces about 90 percent of the nation’s avocado crop
San Diego County is the Avocado Capital of the U.S., producing 60 percent of all the avocados grown in California
There are about 6,000 avocado growers in California; the average grove size is around 10 acres
A single California Avocado tree can produce about 500 avocados (or 200 pounds of fruit) a year although usually average about 60 pounds from 150 fruit
There are seven varieties of avocados grown commercially in California, but the Hass is the most popular, accounting for approximately 95 percent of the total crop volume
About 43 percent of all U.S. households buy avocados