Avocado Milkshake

Avocado be also be consumed in form of beverages. This is one of the examples;

The ingredients needed are an avocado, sweetened condensed milk, milk and ice. Other than that, you will also need a blender. The steps to make this beverage started with the process of cut and peel the avocado. Then, you only have to put the avocado, sweetened milk, milk and ice to be blended together. In addition, you can also add mint leaves if you prefer to have minty taste. Moreover, other fruits such as banana and citrus can be blended together to get more variety of taste.

Let's watch the tutorial video on how to make an avocado milkshake below;

Interesting Avocado Recipes

How can we eat avocado? Is there any special ways to consume it? Well, seems like we have many ways to consume avocado. Let’s learn these interesting and mouth-watering recipes

Avocado Sandwich

This is a simple and fastest way to enjoy your avocado. Things that you need are 2 slices of bread, mayonnaise, sliced tomatoes and avocados. To make a sandwich, you will have to spread the mayo on top of one slice of bread. Then, put the sliced tomatoes followed by sliced avocado on top of the mayo layer. Lastly, top the meal with the remaining slice of bread. Now, it is ready to be eaten. To make it healthier, you are recommended to use multi-grained bread. Other than that, you may also add any other ingredients according to your preference. 

Benefits of Avocado

Avocado can be considered as a healthy food because of the benefits that can be gained from consuming the fruit. There are various benefits that can be pointed out. Some of them are;

Cancer prevention

Based on a study, Lotter (2015) mentioned that phytochemicals from avocado have the ability to hinder and exterminate cancer cells. The chemical substances are also act as cancer preventer.

Good for eyes

According to Best Health (n.d.), a carotenoid which can be found in avocado works as an antioxidant and a substance to prevent eye disease. An avocado not only help us to prevent eye disease but it will also help us to absorb nutrients from other kind of food.

Helps in weight loss

Avocado is known as a food that rich of fats. However, not all fats are bad for our health. Monounsaturated fats in avocado can lower bad cholesterol level and reducing saturated fat in the diet. According to Zinczenko (2015), a study had found that “a diet rich in monounsaturated fat may actually prevent body fat distribution around the belly by down regulating the expression of certain fat genes”. Hence, this shows that consuming avocado is beneficial for weight losing

How to Select and Cut An Avocado

How to select a nicely ripen avocado while shopping? I think this is an important information that everyone should know. Based on common sense, we obviously will choose based on the skin color. However, skin color cannot be used as the only indicator of avocado ripeness. There is trick that can be used to ensure the condition of an avocado. By checking under the stem, we can identify the level of ripeness of an avocado. Simply peel off the small stem on an avocado. If there is green color underneath the stem, it means that the avocado is ready to eat. If you find out the color is dark brown, it means that the avocado is over-ripen.

How to cut and peel an avocado? There are three simple steps to cut and serve an avocado. First of all, you just have to cut around the seed carefully. Open the halves to expose the seed. Next, you have to remove the seed or pit off the flesh. There are two methods to remove the pit. Firstly, you can remove it by using hand by adding another cut to the half which expose more the section of the pit. The second method is by tapping a knife on the pit. You will have to gently tap the sharp part of the knife on the pit until it stick to it. At this point, just twist the knife around to remove the pit. Lastly, you have to peel the flesh off the skin before serving. You can either scoop the flesh out by using spoon or peel the skin by your hands. However, you are recommended to slice the flesh before peeling it because it will make the process easier.

How to Store An Avocado

For your information, avocados will not ripe on tree. Instead, they need to be picked and stored at room temperature for ripening process. But, the important thing to do is you have to make sure that the avocados get enough heat and far from any cold temperature. The ripeness process will usually take from four to seven days.

Interestingly, you can also quicken up the ripening process. How to do that? Just put an avocado together with an apple in a paper bag. According to StillTasty (n.d.) this will help us to reduce the ripeness process time to one to three days. 

How to Plant an Avocado Tree

Now, you have known some information about avocado. But, do you know? You can grow your own avocado tree even at your home. Let’s take a look at the steps of planting an avocado tree.

First of all, you will have to prepare an avocado, toothpicks and a glass/jar of water. You must beforehand sliced the avocado into two parts. The planting procedure begins by removing the seed or pit off the flesh.

After cleaning the pit, toothpicks will be used to be stick into the pit. However, you must find out the upper and bottom part of the seed before deciding to stick the toothpicks.

The next step is to place the pit half submerge in a glass of water. Make sure that you place the glass at sunlight reachable spot. This will ensure the growing process of the pit. Other than that, you will also have to change the water after 2-3 days in repeat. The reason is to prevent any mold, fungus and bacteria growth.

After few months, the pit is expected to have grown its roots. The estimate time for the pit to sprout its roots is about three months. When the roots begin to fill the glass, you have to transplant it carefully into a pot or directly into soil.

Lastly, continuous care of the plant is needed to make sure the good growth of it. At this stage you have to water and fertilize the plant repeatedly.

For further understanding, you may refer to this infographic image.

Varieties of Avocados

Just like other fruits, there are also various types of avocados. The differences of each avocado types is determined by their characteristic, features or availability. Generally, there are hundreds type of avocados that are grown all around the world. However, I would like to talk about only three types of avocados.

1. Bacon

Bacon type of avocado was developed a farmer, James Bacon in 1954. It is originated from Buena Park, California. Bacon avocados are known for their oval-shape and medium to large seed. Based on appearance, the avocados have smooth and thin green skin and fair yellow-green colored flesh. Other than that, the avocados are also easy to peel and have slightly sweet and light taste. When they are ripen, the skin color will either remain green or slightly become darker.

2. Hass

Hass is the most popular type of avocado which originated in Guatemala and Mexico. This avocado species was developed by a Californian postman named Rudolph Hass in 1926. The avocados are pear shaped and they have rough dark-colored, purplish and thick skin. For this type, the skin will turn black when the fruit is ripen. In addition, they also have pale and creamy flesh and for the seed, the size is small. Instead of Guatemala and Mexico, the Hass can also be grown in the southern regions of Texas and Florida. 

3. Reed

Reed avocado was developed by James S. Reed in Carlsbad in 1948. Different from others, Reed avocados are known for their round-shape and medium seed. However, other features of this particular avocado is similar with other types. The avocados have thick green skin and medium sized seed along with creamy flesh. Other than that, they are also known for their good taste and easy peeling skin. When they are ripen, their skin remain green.