Avocados or Perseus American – large fruits of tall evergreen tropical trees of the Perseus genus, family of Laurel. There are more than a hundred kinds of avocados and they are all edible. The nutritional value of avocado fruit is more than 200 kcal per 100 grams. Mexico is considered the birthplace of avocados, where they began to be cultivated during the times of the ancient Inca civilization a few thousand years ago.
Now on the shelves of our stores you can find a lot of imported exotic fruits and vegetables. Especially the names of such overseas products as avocado, marakuya, lychee, mango, pamela are widely known.
Often people see new offers on the shop windows, but they don’t rush to buy them. Often they simply do not know how to eat them and what of them can be cooked. Although in the menu of many nations these fruits are common. Probably should know more about them.
Moreover, our people confuse some overseas wonders with vegetables, although it is possible to buy them at a reasonable price and try. So, for example, it happened with avocados – our compatriots still cannot figure out: a fruit or a vegetable is that same avocado.
Not always sellers of supermarkets can answer our questions and say what this imported exotic product is useful for. Let’s get acquainted with this tropical fruit, very useful for people with its nutritional properties.
Avocados, or Perseus American grows primarily in Mexico and Central and South America. Translated from the Aztec language, this word means “testicle”. There is another name for this fruit, “auakatl”, which means forest oil. Incas, this fruit was called “Coat”.
These fruits grow on trees. This tall tree from the family of laurel belongs to the ever-green plants. The leaves of the tree do not fall almost all year round. The tree itself reaches 18 meters in height. Avocado flowers are small, not attracting the attention located in the axils of the leaves.
The fruits on the branches are located close to each other. Therefore, we can say with full confidence that avocado is a fruit, because vegetables do not grow on trees. Although because of its specific taste, the fruits of this tree are sometimes mistaken for a vegetable.
Fruits come in various shapes – ellipsoidal, pear-shaped, spherical. The length, depending on the variety, is from 5 to 20 cm. Weight also varies from 50 g to 1.8 kg. If the skin of the fruit is dark green, then it is not yet ripe fruit. After full maturity, the color changes to black. There is a large seed inside the fruit. The pulp contains many oils, minerals and vitamins. It tastes like butter mixed with greens and nuts. Because of this, for a long time, the fruit was considered a nut. And for the nutritional value in 1998, avocados were added to the Guinness Book of Records.
There are about 500 types of avocados in the world. But the most famous in the world is Hass. It is stored for a long time, has a small bone, many nutrients and great taste. It helped him spread throughout the world. Also export varieties FUERTE, MEXICOLA, PINKERTON, BACON, ESTER and others. All of them have a long shelf life, which allows the fruit to be stored for a long time and transported from any country in the world. But in form and weight they differ from each other.
