Why I love avocado on the keto diet
Avocado is one of the healthiest low carb veggies (er, fruit actually!) on the planet.
Avocado contains fiber, copper, folate, and potassium. The fruit also contains Vitamin K, Vitamin E, Vitamin C, and Vitamin B1, B2, B3, B5 and B6. That’s a lot of B-Vitamins! It also contains zinc, iron, manganese, and magnesium. With a mere 2 net carbohydrates per 100 grams, the avocado is a must on the list of acceptable foods on the keto diet. It is low in saturated fats and absent of sodium and cholesterol.
Photo Courtesy of Fresh Avocados – Love One Today ©
Eating avocados may help with controlling hypertension. The fruit is high in potassium and studies have identified a link between elevated potassium levels and normalized blood pressure values. The fruit is also high in good-for-you monounsaturated fatty acids. About ⅕ of the avocado’s content is insoluble and soluble forms of fiber: This means the fruit can help in keeping the digestive processes and gastrointestinal tract functioning at its best.
Avocados have high phytonutrient content. The fruit also features a number of antioxidants for natural free radical defense. Additionally, the high amount of oleic acid in avocados serves to help in diminishing issues with inflammation and for lowering cholesterol levels.
Super low in carbs, high in healthy fats, packed full of nutrients – this is one of the most perfect superfoods for a LCHF ketogenic diet. If you love avocado as much as I do, go ahead and treat yo’ self! The fruit is rich and filling, making it pretty hard to over-indulge on carbs.
Curious where it stacks up in comparison to other vegetables? Check out the low carb vegetables list I put together!
How to cook avocado
Avocados really shine when eaten raw, offering a complex mix of flavors: smooth, creamy, buttery. They maintain a fresh, but mildly earthy scent. Use avocados whenever you need to add richness to a dish for amazing results.
Preparation techniques include: raw, fried, pureed, baked
To consume the avocado, make sure you wash the fruit first. You can use a paring knife to cut the pear-shaped fruit into two halves, but know in advance you will encounter a large, hard seed when you are cutting. Once cut in half, you can eat the fleshy interior raw as-is or you can scoop it out of the fruit’s skin and mix it into your favorite dishes. If you are feeling a little fancy, you can put your knife skills to the test and make a beautiful avocado rose.
Of course, you probably already know that you can use avocados to make guacamole, but did you know that the fruit is also ideal as a meat substitute because it is so high in protein? If you are a vegetarian embarking on the keto diet, put this on your grocery list asap!
You can cut up the fleshy fruit into slices and garnish your dishes for an extra pop of flavor and color. If you want to be clever with your dishes, cut the avocado in half after removing the pit. Use the small indentation left behind after removal of the seed … Voila! An avocado bowl for a small scoop of your favorite salad!
Consider adding the cut up fruit to your soups, casseroles, and salads. Oh, and did you know you can use avocado as a low-calorie mayonnaise substitute? That’s right ... you can puree the avocado’s flesh and use it as a low-calorie alternative to mayonnaise in case you are watching your calories in addition to cutting carbs. Use the puree for deviled eggs, tuna or chicken salad for an easy keto snack or meal.
Avocado pairs well with the following flavor combinations:
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- Basil + Red Onion + Balsamic Vinegar + Tomatoes
- Lemon + Smoked Trout
- Cilantro + Lime Juice
- Bacon + Pretty Much Anything 🙂
How to pick the perfect avocado
When choosing your avocado at the Farmer’s Market or grocery store, make sure the exterior skin of the fruit is just a bit soft. The skin should not be compromised in any way by cracks, holes, or spots. If you want the fruits with the richest flavors, choose those that have a short neck versus those that have a rounded-off top portion: The short-necked avocados have had a bit more time on the tree to ripen more, so the flavor from the berries is intensified.
When storing your avocados, refrain from refrigerating them until they are ripe. You can speed up the ripening process by placing avocados in a paper bag at room temperature. Once ripened, they will last up to seven days when refrigerated.
Here's a great in-depth visual guide for selecting the right avocado if you are unsure which to choose.
LOW CARB AVOCADO RECIPES
![Avocado Popsicle with Coconut & Lime [Recipe]](https://ketogasm.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/avocado-popsicle-coconut-lime-01-2.jpg.webp)
This easy Avocado Popsicle recipe is fun and refreshing! The texture is just like a fudgsicle; a perfect warm weather low carb treat!
![Avocado Cilantro Lime Mayo [Recipe] | KETOGASM Only 4 ingredients! #keto #lchf #lowcarb #atkins #paleo #whole30 #condiments #mayonnaise #mayo](https://ketogasm.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/avocado-cilantro-lime-mayo-5-1024x680.jpg.webp)
One of the easiest ways to incorporate avocado into your diet is to use it as a condiment. Try my Avocado Cilantro Lime Mayonnaise recipe for a low carb, nutrient-packed sauce that's good on EVERYTHING!
Low Carb Avocado Recipe Roundup
- I love to mix avocado with other fresh veggies and herbs to add richness and depth of flavor to simple salads. This Cucumber Avocado Salad from Dani at The Adventure Bite is the epitome of easy and would make an excellent low carb side dish!
- These Egg Stuffed Avocados by Martina of the KetoDietApp are not only delicious and beautiful, they may help you combat the dreaded keto-flu!
- Kalyn's Kitchen always delivers tasty low carb recipes! Her blog is geared toward South Beach diet recipes, but I've found lots of keto friendly treasures like her Avocado Frittata with Cotija and Mozzarella Cheese!
Everything you could ever want to know about avocado (…and more!)
The avocado is a fruit native to Central America and Mexico. The tree-grown fruit is part of the Lauraceae family: This grouping also includes laurel, camphor, bay, and cinnamon. The avocado is a flowering tree. The fruit is actually a single, pear-shaped berry with a large walnut-colored seed in the middle.
Avocados are also referenced as Persea americana. The Aztecs used to consume the berry (Nahuatl Indians), and called the fruit ahuakatl or ahuácatl meaning “testicle.” Several theories exist as to why the name of the avocado stems from the word ahuácatl. One argument suggests it was because the avocado has an appearance like a testicle, so the connection between the two words was made. Some sources suggest the fruit is associated with Aztec fertility rites. A similar argument suggests that avocados are powerful, all-natural aphrodisiacs. Ooh-la-la!
The word ahuácatl became aguacate, which is the word “avocado” in Spanish. In Central and South America, because the exterior of the fruit has a near-scaly, reptilian-like appearance, coupled with the notion the body of the avocado looks just like a pear ... people began calling avocado the Alligator Pear. As of this date, the earliest written reference to the avocado was in the early 1500s and it appeared in a book by Martin Fernández de Enciso.
The avocado tree and fruit grow best in the Mediterranean and tropical environments. Once plucked from the tree, the avocado will start to ripen. The skin of the fruit starts out thick and thins as it grows and ripens: It is a deep, dark green color. The interior of the berry ranges from a yellow to light green color. The seed is a walnut-brown to dark brown color. While the majority of avocados are pear-shaped, some of the berries have spherical or egg-shaped exteriors. The avocado tree is often grown and cultivated through a process known as grafting.
Originating in Puebla, Mexico, is the Persea Americana: The undomesticated avocados called criollo have one big seed inside, and the skin is a dark black color. This avocado tree has been around for at least the last 10,000 years. Today, this long beloved fruit remains a popular food choice for healthy eaters.
As mentioned earlier, the avocado is native to Mediterranean and tropical climates. If grown during its natural season, the avocado grows from early spring until fall. The fruit is ripened by the fall as well. The trees grow best in dry soil and direct sunlight. This doesn’t stop people from growing the fruit the whole year through, so you can rest assured avocado is available to you every single day at your grocery store. Win!
Let me know how it goes!
If you are anything like I am, you will find playing around with low carb recipes super fun! I firmly believe you can eat delicious meals on the keto diet and still feel full, satisfied, and un-deprived. I hope you will share your recipes with me and let me know about your kitchen adventures. Try out some of the recipes or flavor profiles provided and let me know how it goes in the comments below. I would love to hear from you!
Hi, I'm Tasha–nutritionist, recipe developer, and multi-published cookbook author.
How much avocados can you eat in a day while on Keto?
I couldn’t resist commenting. Perfectly written!
Hi Tasha. I am planning on starting on a ketogenic lifestyle next month. I absolutely can't stand avocado though. Is there a reasonable substitute? Any suggestions for a successful start?
Try the chocolate avocado pudding . I hate avocados but man is this good. You will need a sweet dessert to help on a keto diet . Mix 2 small avocados 2 T cocoa and some stevia or swerve. I added some whipped crea,
M to lighten it up and chill and let sit to encorporate the cocoa .
I too make a pudding with avocado and I used Chocolate protein powder (sweetened with Stevia), and a little extra cocoa for extra punch. I'm just curious if you eat your's at once, or do you break it up into 2 portions?
Back home (Philippines), avocados are only served as a dessert: shakes, ice cream, popsicle, sliced with evaporated milk and sugar, or sliced with brown sugar only. Yum!! Since I am on a low carb diet as well, I substitute evaporated milk with about a tablespoon of heavy cream and a little amount of Truvia for sugar. When making the avocado shake, I use the same amount of heavy cream and Truvia and add about a cup of ice cubes. Voila, sweet tooth satisfied!
Hi. I'm new to the Ketogenic lifestyle and had a few questions. Ketogenic is supposed to be high fat, moderate protein and low carb.
Well a lot of the people I see do Keto are eating items or meals that have more protein than fat. For instance, one person ate some chicken wings which had a few grams more protein than fat?
Also some people I've seen eat bacon which has the same fat and the exact same protein?
Am I missing something? Isn't every single item we're suppose to eat need to have more fat than protein and low carb?
I also don't see how people eat chicken? The chicken had almost no fat but tons of protein. So confused.
And in terms of Alvacados, how much fat does an entire one have? Just found your site and loving it. Thank you for any help you can provide.
So why is this still c
Hey there! In a nutshell, nutritional ketosis is mainly about limiting carbohydrate to the point that you are burning fats for fuel instead of carbohydrates. People follow various protocols, so you'll see a variety of approaches... however, there's no rule about eating more fat than protein in each ingredient/meal/etc. If you are doing keto for fat loss, it's important to create a calorie deficit. Carbs always stay low, protein requirements are pretty much a constant no matter what diet you are following (important to provide a source of amino acids to support your lean body mass - especially if you don't want to lose muscle), so fat intake varies depending on the deficit you decide to create. Once you are eating to maintain your weight, you increase fat intake to meat your calorie requirements. There's a lot of confusion around this! There are medically therapeutic ketogenic ratios, but that's an entirely different context. But even then, the items do not have to have more fat in them than protein so long as it fits within someones macronutrient guidelines. I created this video to help explain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5caTlPUTUk and the book The Art & Science of Low Carbohydrate Living (and also The Art & Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance) by Stephen Phinney and Jeff Volek goes into great detail about this. They have a ton of free video lectures on youtube as well. To find the nutrition info of a whole avocado, you'd be best to look up the info in the USDA nutrient database for the particular size avocado you have. Lots of detailed info there. Hopefully this helps!
While avocado's have a low amount of carbs for a fruit, at 12 grams of carbs for a medium avocado, they have a fairly high amount for the Keto diet.
Hey Dan, most of the carbohydrate count comes fiber which many keto dieters (including myself) subtract to count net carbs to incorporate more vegetables into their diet. Counting total carbohydrates, you would be hardpressed to fit most, if any, vegetables or fruit into your diet. If you go the total carb (or no veggie) route, micronutrients are important to incorporate into your diet but are more difficult to come by. Taking a more nose-to-tail approach, eating the offal and parts of an animal to get the essential micronutrients would be a good bet.
Here's a link to the USDA nutrient database page for avocado: https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods/show/2156?fgcd=&manu=&lfacet=&format=&count=&max=50&offset=&sort=default&order=asc&qlookup=avocado&ds=&qt=&qp=&qa=&qn=&q=&ing=
In a single avocado that weighs 201 grams, there are 17.15 grams of total carbs, but 13.5 grams are from fiber. 17.15-13.5 = 3.65 grams of net carbs in a decent sized avocado. Hope that helps! Or at least sheds light on why avocado remains a popular choice on the keto diet.
How many avocados are okay daily on a LCHF / Keto diet...we're new to this way of eating to reverse our type 2 diabetes & are trying to add more healthy fats to our diet...loving the avocado but not sure how much is too much. Thanks , we just found your website & are loving the recipes & info!
Hey there! A keto diet, or nutritional ketosis, focuses on limiting carbohydrates to make the metabolic switch over from sugar burner to fat burner. Everyone has their own unique carbohydrate tolerance for this to happen, but most stay between 20 to 30 grams of net carbohydrates (total carbs minus fiber) per day. The amount of avocado you could comfortably fit within this range would be dependent on your other carbohydrate intake. Best to track or plan intake to ensure you are getting a good balance of macro and micronutrients. Hope that helps!
I am vegan just trying keto diet as it works so good for my husband who eat meat , I have lost 10 lb plus and love avocado so very happy to read all good about avocado and appreciate your information about all goodness in avocado.
Thank you for the kind words, Asha! ?
So i should expect to lose weight on a avocado lifestyle?
I've been struggling to get my cholesterol down even on the keto diet so have been looking for ways to eat more of fats that aren't cheese and cream as these have been my stables for months so coming across this post has given me lots of ideas as to how to add avocado into my diet when I'm not really very keen on it - thank you! 😀
I so wish I could stand the taste of them. I'm so picky. Veggies are hard for me to get down. yuck. sigh.
Hi there,
I just wanted to know why you suggest washing the avocado before cutting it open?
Never heard of this and want to make sure I'm not doing something wrong.
Thanks x
The skin may have harmful bacteria (or chemicals, debris, etc) that's not really visible to the naked eye. Once you cut into that layer with a knife, the knife may spread the potential contaminant to the part you are going to eat. Best practice is to wash your produce, just a basic food safety measure. Here's a link to a brief article that goes a little more in depth: https://www.rd.com/health/healthy-eating/preparing-avocado/ Hope that helps!
It all falls down for me as I am deathly allergic to avocados, have been my whole life. When choosing to avoid anaphylaxis and eating avocados? Avocados out the window, that being said I am having a hard time finding a Keto diet without the avo and it's becoming discouraging. What is a good substitute?
Hi my name is Dina , im fixing to start the diet . I was wondering when you start out is it easier to start with a no carb diet or is it better for you to start on a low carb diet? Thank you and love your website
It would be great if you would tell us how much avacado is in 100 grams. Is it a half, a quarter, what? Most people don't know how much a 100 grams is.
So i'm seeing an avocado has 12 g of carbs. If Keto is supposed to be 25g or less a day. Avocado takes up almost half for the whole day. Carb is carb whether from fiber or not. Is that not true?
I look at it this way - by being physically active and incorporating some higher intensity exercises in to your daily routine, the excess carbs you might get from eating avocados or vegetables will be welcomed while in the gym. I find it hard to believe that people who are concerned about weightloss aren't considering some type of cardiovascular work in their lives, which would help in many additional ways than keto already is. Together, it's a win win.
I eat 2-3 avocados a day. For someone running marathons and who is an active powerbuilder (combining both strength and hypertrophy training), the calorie dense food, fiber, and few extra carbs a worth possibly bouncing in and out of ketosis once in awhile. Overall, the lower carb life style has helped immensely in so many different areas. If I'm in ketosis, it's an added benefit.
When you say 2 carbs per 100 grams are you weighing the whole avacado or just the fruit?
Just the fruit. The info is sourced from the USDA nutrient database.
Hi to the Avocado posts and sorry to keep going on about it, but I am new to this and if I thought i could eat 2 - 3 a day I would be happy, but I am not running marathons or powerbuilding, so i'm worried that its too much.
I have looked all over the KETO websites and they all say different things (or nothing at all) about how many we can have per day. I am 5"7, 43 year old female, 147 pounds. I practice between 3 - 4 hours of bikram yoga per week. And walk 2.5 hours per week.
How many avocados can I eat per day?
Hi Kate,
The amount of avocado you can eat per day will really depend on what else you are eating, what your goals are, and how many calories per day you burn. While avocados are high in fiber, making them lower in net carbs, they still have calories that can add up if eaten in large amounts. My suggestion would be to use a keto calculator to determine your macros (there is one on this site: https://ketogasm.com/keto-calculator/ ) and then using an app like Cronometer or MyFitnessPal to track your food. This will give you an idea of how much you are eating in respect to your goals and if you have room for those 2 to 3 avocados.