With the never-ending rise of new avocado-based recipes, there’s no denying that the fruit is popular. The avocado is a versatile ingredient, with diverse applications including smoothies, hummus, cupcakes and egg-based recipes. Besides their great taste, avocados offer both health benefits and drawbacks. 

The avocado was coined America’s new favourite fruit in 2015 when its popularity began soaring. That year, more than 4.25 billion avocados were eaten in the United States, which was more than double the avocados consumed in 2005. It is also estimated that global avocado imports peaked at $4.82 billion in 2016, representing a 21 per cent increase from only four years earlier. 

The popularity of avocados has continued in recent years. In Feb. 2022, AVO, a restaurant whose menu is made exclusively of avocado-based items including toasts, sandwiches and wraps, opened in Montreal, Que. And a recent internet trend has come in the form of grated egg avocado toast, an invention by TikTok user Sarah Thomas-Drawbaugh, whose Jan. 2021 avocado-based recipe has received over three million views.

But how does the rapid rise of avocados impact our physical health?

Avocados provide many health benefits. Notably, avocados are an excellent source of potassium, which helps regulate our bodies’ fluid balance. They also contain many B vitamins, which present a variety of benefits including encouraging better moods and helping your body convert food into energy. 

Though avocados are notoriously fatty — about 15 per cent of an avocado is fat — these fats are also good for you. Avocados are made from monounsaturated fat, which aids your heart by helping lower bad LDL cholesterol and blood pressure. 

Others suggest that avocados’ popularity is impacting our financial health.

According to Tim Gurner, a successful real estate agent, avocados are preventing millennials from buying houses. Gurner cites the price of avocado toast, in combination with the millennial trend of eating out, as a primary obstacle for aspiring homeowners. 

But the idea that avocado toast is bankrupting millennials has since been debunked. According to the Food Institute, Americans from age 25 to 34 spent $3,097 on eating out per year in 2015. This figure is only a $305 increase from money spent eating out by people aged 55 to 64. Even if millennials adopted similar habits of eating out, they would still only be saving $305 a year — hardly enough for a down payment on a home. 

Lastly, avocados impact our environmental health, as growing avocado production has caused irreparable damage to the environment.

Most avocado farming is concentrated in Michoacán, Mexico, where approximately 260 thousand acres of land are dedicated to farming the green fruit. This extensive yield is a result of the high demand for avocados — a demand that has led to the burning of forests to produce cropland. Deforestation is only exacerbated by the removal of old trees and shrubs, which are often removed to provide better sunlight for avocado trees. 

Furthermore, the excess of water needed to produce avocados — 9.5 billion litres a day — has strained Michoacán’s water systems, leading to small earthquakes. Not to mention, the carbon footprint of the avocado nearly doubles the carbon footprint of the banana, a potassium-filled alternative.

Despite the host of health benefits that avocados offer to consumers worldwide, their status as the world’s favourite fruit is challenged by their detrimental impacts on the environment and production areas. A piece of avocado toast at $22 may seem trivial at first, but the overarching costs may be far greater.   

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Hannah Tran | Editor-in-Chief

Graphic: Jaymie Stachyruk | Graphics Editor