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   Food & Drink / How Many Calories in an Avocado

Avocados are highly nutritional and have a great number of health benefits, but many people avoid them. They prefer to eat other fruits because they are lower in calories¹. In this article we will tell you how many calories are in an avocado, and provide a lot of useful information about this fruit.

How Many Calories are in an Avocado?

As the California Avocado Commission states, one medium-sized avocado has about 250 calories. But many dieticians can tell you that there are about 310-320 calories in an avocado. What answer is correct? You should realize that we are discussing fruits and the term “medium-sized” is very approximate. You can take ten medium avocados and they will not have the same weight or size. So, the number of calories in them will be different.

It means that we cannot give the exact answer to the question, “How many calories are in an avocado?” But the prevailing opinion on this issue is following:

• One medium avocado contains about 300 calories

Here we provide the table that will help you to find out the number of calories in some measurement units of ordinary, California and Florida avocados



As a rule, a serving has one half of an avocado. It means that you get about 150 calories when you eat it.

Food Value of Avocados

More than ninety percent of the calories, containing in avocados, come from fat. But don’t be afraid to eat them if you are on a diet. This fat mostly consists of monounsaturated (about 93%) and polyunsaturated (about 20%) fats. Both of them are good for your body.

They keep the heart healthy, lower the cholesterol level and speed up the metabolism. These fats quickly satisfy hunger, keep feeling full and prevent from eating unnecessary foods, which are not good for diets. So you can eat half an avocado several times a week even if you try to lose weight.

Avocados are also rich in potassium. It helps to maintain healthy blood pressure. In avocados there is more potassium than in bananas which are known as a rich source of this mineral.

There are some other reasons to eat avocados. They prevent prostate cancer, oral cancer and breast cancer. Their carotenoid lutein protects eyes against cataracts and macular degeneration. Folate, containing in avocados, lower the risk of stroke. There is no fruit that contains more vitamin E than the avocado.

The table below will give you nutritional information for the avocado.

How to Select and Store Avocados

A good avocado should not have any darken spots, sunken into its flesh. The fruit should not be very round, choose one with a slight neck. If an avocado is too firm, don’t worry. It will soften later at your home. You can make it ripen quicker, if you place it in some paper bag. After you have cut into an avocado, put the remainder in the refrigerator.

Some Facts about Avocado

Now that you know so much useful information about the avocado, read some interesting facts about it:

• Avocado fruits ripen after having been harvested.
• Avocados are sometimes called “alligator pears” because they resemble pears by shape and their external texture looks like the alligator skin.
• There are more than half a thousand avocado varieties.
• One tree produces between 200 and 500 avocados in a year.
• Californian avocados grow all the year round.

In general, the avocado is a very healthy fruit, and we hope that our article has convinced you of the truth of this statement.

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