Avocados for Fat Loss?

I was having a discussion (as it often happens) with a couple of omnivorous friends yesterday about the relative merits of vegetarian vs. omnivore diets. This happens a lot - when people find out I'm vegan, they typically want to talk me out of it, as if I've just had my head up my arse for all these years, waiting for someone to come along and enlighten me.

Quite a bit of the discussion was pretty rote, at least for me, but one comment stuck out in my mind:

My friend, a diehard meat eater, said, "meat isn't any worse for you than vegetables. Just look how fattening avocados are!"

I thought the statement a little odd, but really, that's the conventional wisdom in the omnivorous world. Avocados contain a high amount of fat; therefore, they are fattening.

So, discounting the niggle about an avocado being a vegetable (it's not - it's actually a large berry), I thought I'd do a little digging, and see if that statement really had any merit.

Well, it turns out that a medium avocado has about 30 grams of fat - as much as one of those fast food quarter pound hamburgers. That's quite a bit, especially since keeping fat intake down is a central tenet for most weight loss and health programs.

But eating an avocado and eating a hamburger are not the same thing.

Animal fats are saturated fats - meaning that they contribute to low density lipoprotein (LDL) levels, which cause the body to store these fats, rather than use them to reduild cells and detoxify the body. It also increases the risk for heart disease.

Avocado fats are monounsaturated - the "good" fats that supply high density lipoprotein (HDL), which lowers cholesterol and reduces the chance of heart disease. Monounsaturated fats are easily assimilated by the body and turned into raw energy. In other words, the body knows what to do with these fats... so it doesn't shove them off to pad your butt.

Also, avocados contain the enzyme lipase, which actually breaks down fat that is stored in the body. So not only do avocados not contribue to weight gain, they actually facilitate fat loss.

(Now, don't get the idea that you're going to drop a couple of dress sizes in a week by shoveling down avocados day and night. The fat burning effects of lipase are rather mild - this is something that you can see happen over months, not days.)

Finally, organic avocados contain enzymes such as protease which detoxify the body. Because toxins are stored with excess fat, these toxins are released into your body when the excess fat is burned. This can cause bloating and water retention (both are a really great time). Protease works to eliminate these toxins, helping you achieve steady weight loss.

So am I saying that the avocado is a "superfood" for weight loss? No, not really. To achieve rapid weight loss, you'd pretty much have to eat the things exclusively for weeks on end. I'd wager that you'd forever swear off anything green before you'd see results worthy of a spot on the cover of People Magazine.

Plus, I'm always a little leery of "superfood" claims anyway - most of these claims are artfully spun by some guy trying to, say, figure out what the hell to do with a crate of dried goji berrys. Antioxidants? Ah-ha! Goji berries are now the key to eternal life! But I digress...

Superfood or not, I think it's safe to say that avocados are not the hip-bulging beasts that most of us think. And you certainly can't compare them to a slab of meat, in my opinion.

I eat them pretty much every day. And I just recently got back the results of a screening I had to do at a health fair for work (well, it was either that or take a 20% hike on my health insurance). My cholesterol is in the low-normal range, and my HDL levels are in the high-normal range. I was scored as a low risk for heart disease.

And if you've seen my videos, you know I'm not at any risk of being called "chunky" anytime soon....

Vegan Recipe: Spicy Marinated Tofu with Avocado Sauce

So tonight's entry went down something like this:

All day, I had it in my head that I'd like to try marinating tofu in adobo sauce. After all, you can buy jalapenos packed in adobo sauce, so I figured I must be able to buy the stuff in a jar by itself, right?

Nope. At least not at the Kroger down the street.

So I stood in the Mexican foods section, staring at the bottles and jars of things which, for the most part, I was entirely unfamiliar with. I found dry adobo seasoning, but I figured tofu wasn't really going to absorb the taste of that very well. Tofu is a rather recalcitrant substance, after all.

I realized I looked like some dumb tourist that had wandered off the beaten path in a Mexican village, and decided that I needed to come up with Plan B quickly.

So I grabbed a jar of something called "sofrito", gathered the rest of my groceries, and headed home, confident that I had salvaged my plan.

That is, until I tasted the sauce.

It turns out, sofrito has a pretty heavy green bell pepper taste. There aren't too many vegetables I don't like, but I absolutely hate green bell peppers. Bah.

So now what?

Clearly, it was time to improvise. So a quick scan of the pantry, a couple of irrational decisions, and a Hail Mary was launched to try to make this potential disaster work.

Amazingly, it did work. So here you go:

Spicy Marinated Tofu with Avocado Sauce

1 package extra firm tofu, frozen and thawed

1 tbsp olive oil

Marinade for tofu:

1 can (14 oz) tomato sauce

1/3 tbsp cayenne pepper

1/3 tbsp cumin

1/3 tbsp garlic salt

Avocado sauce:

1 avocado, peeled and sliced

Juice from 1/2 lemon

1/2 cup plain soy milk

1 clove of garlic, peeled

Pinch of cayenne pepper

Garnish:

1 small/medium tomato, diced

1/4 cup fresh scallions

Mix all marinade ingredients in a flat casserole dish.

Drain tofu. Wrap it in a dishtowel and press out excess water. The more water you remove, the better the tofu will absorb the marinade.

Slice tofu into 8 pieces, cutting across the longer side of the tofu block (pieces will be about 1/2" thick). Place slices in marinade, making sure that the tofu is completely covered. If it's not, you'll need to turn it a few times while it is marinating. Let sit for at least 30 minutes.

Remove tofu slices from marinade and place in a large skillet with the olive oil. Turn several times during cooking. I pan fried the tofu for about 8 minutes, which seemed just about right. Any longer, and I think the tomato sauce would have started burning.

Place all of the avocado sauce ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.

Transfer tofu slices to plates. Spoon avocado sauce over tofu, garnish with tomatoes and scallions.

Notes:

Not much to say, other than it turned out wonderfully, despite my trepidation. I really did use a lot of cayenne pepper in the marinade, but the cool, citrus taste of the avocado sauce balanced out the heat.

Oh, and it really is important that you wait as long as you can before making the avocado sauce - preferably until the tofu is almost done. Right out of the blender, it has a nice, vivid green color that compliments the deep orange-red of the tofu to create a visually appealing dish.

After dinner, though, I noticed that the leftover avocado sauce had turned an icky brownish green color - kind of like what it would look like if the neighbor kid rode his bike through your hostas right after a thunderstorm. About 12 times.

Anyway, the only thing I would change here is the side dish. I decided on baked tortilla chips (take tortillas, cut them like a pizza, bake on a nonstick baking pan at 400 degrees for six minutes) and fresh salsa... but that wasn't quite right. Not bad, just not right.

I'll have to ponder that. If you have any suggestions, I'd be glad to try them out.

On a completely unrelated note, I'll leave you with this picture I took of my daughter this morning as she was leaving for school. She was proud of her new dress, so I couldn't deny her a couple of pictures.