The Many (Many, Many) Health Benefits of Guacamole

There are some out there who like to proclaim that nothing tastes as good as healthy feels.

We only have one question for those people: Have you ever heard of guacamole?

With the magical combined powers of avocado, onion, garlic, tomato and lime, the concoction isn’t just one of the most nutritious dishes around, it might just be the world’s tastiest dip.

So if you ask us, it’s always worth it to pay extra for the guac. (Or, you could always build your own ... and get the fixing for a spicy margarita!

Health At Every Scale

In fact, a homemade guacamole box from FruitStand will help you maximize the healthy potential of your all-natural ingredients in several ways.

FruitStand products utilize Apeel technology: A plant-derived coating that helps keep produce fresher longer. In the case of avocados, you can expect your Apeel coating to help keep the fruits ripe two times longer than an avocado from the store.

And Apeel doesn’t just help fruits, but the entire agricultural community that’s grown up around them.

A naturally longer shelf-life means better transportability, with small farmers specializing in niche cultivars able to ship their products further—or even for the first time—without worry of spoiling. With the post-harvest assurance of extended ripeness, farmers of all types can wait longer to pick their fruit, as well, meaning the avocados you get will have had more time to ripen on the tree, making them even more nutrient-dense.

Apeel’s all-natural shelf-life extension also leads to less reliance on refrigeration – and less effects of climate change largely associated with the artificial atmosphere control. And the company also helps small farms directly, by donating $1 of every purchase to The Food Project, a non-profit supporting youth, diversity and community farms.

But these avocado boxes are helpful at any scale, from macroeconomics to the molecular level. 

Holy Moly!

Guacamole is a harbinger of health superpowers from its association with the avocado alone.

The funny looking fruit is truly one of the most amazing vehicles for nutrients in the natural world, with more than 20 vitamins and minerals calling its creamy green flesh home.

Just one average serving of avocado (about 3.5 ounces) packs 10% or more of the daily recommended doses of vitamin K, vitamin C, vitamin B5, vitamin B6 and vitamin E as well as the nutrient folate, crucial for maintaining cellular health, and the mineral potassium, which helps keep our nerves and muscles moving.

The same amount of avocado also offers smaller amounts of important dietary staples like magnesium, manganese, copper, zinc, phosphorous and a stream of other vitamins, including vitamin A, vitamin B1 (AKA thiamine), vitamin B2 (AKA riboflavin) and vitamin B3 (AKA niacin).

Another of avocado’s famous tricks is its fiber content, which clocks in at just over 25% of the daily recommended amount in just one serving. And the technically indigestible plant matter has a whole slew of health benefits to its name, from help with digestive health to blood sugar control to weight loss.

But perhaps the avocado’s biggest claim to fame is its healthy store of healthy fats. In fact, nearly three-quarters of an avocado’s calories can be attributed to monounsaturated fat.

Specifically, the monounsaturated fat found in the fruit comes from oleic acid, the same compound responsible for many of the health benefits of olive oil. And while it sounds counterintuitive, the fatty acid can actually help keep fat off our bellies and lead to everything from lower cholesterol to better blood pressure and balanced blood sugar.

But when it comes to guacamole, avocado isn’t the only magic maker in the mix.

Mean Green Machine

Amazingly, guacamole gets even more nutritious when you consider its other ingredients (just like the ones you’ll find in your box) – tomatoes, onions, garlic and lime.  And each contributor is worthy of its own page proclaiming the long list of bountiful health benefits it has to offer.

Tomatoes, for starters, are rich sources of antioxidants like lycopene, which has been linked to a reduced risk of heart disease and cancer, and chlorogenic acid, which is associated with lower blood pressure. The fruits also carry their fair share of vitamins and minerals, including vitamin C, vitamin K, potassium and folate.

Onions come with their own truckload of health benefits, as one of the most nutrient-dense pieces of produce on the planet. For all their average of 44 calories, the plants pack in enough vitamins, minerals and antioxidants to claim connections to reduced blood pressure and cholesterol levels—which, in turn, reduce the risk of heart disease and help increase kidney health—better blood sugar levels, boosted bone density, smoother digestive health and even anti-fungal properties that can help keep harmful bacteria away. Whew!

As a fellow member of the allium family, garlic has its own suite of health benefits on offer, mostly stemming from the miracle compound allicin, which gives garlic nearly otherworldly powers. The plant part has been found responsible for everything from helping prevent the common cold to reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease to keeping cholesterol levels low to generally promoting a detoxified atmosphere within the body. Also in play inside a garlic bulb are a slew of vitamins and minerals, including—but not limited to!—manganese, vitamin B6, vitamin C and selenium.

And finally, limes deliver a lot more than the necessary acidic bite to round out the palate of the creamy dish. The citrus fruit packs in an impressive amount of nutrients, including potassium, vitamins A, B, C and D, calcium and magnesium, which adds up to a number of health benefits. Lime juice, like many other citric acids, has been linked to improved digestion, clearer skin, lower blood sugar and even weight loss.

All told, the guacamole lineup is like the Murderer’s Row of produce: All killer, no filler.

But just like the 1927 Yankees or any other team, the ingredients play even better when they play together.

Greater Than The Sum of Their Parts

Food nutrition is an interesting bit of chemistry, where individual parts of certain plants may make completely different biological impacts based on which other compounds are – or are not – present in the mix.

In the case of guacamole, the entire dish truly sings with a number of high-caliber collaborations that give the total recipe that much more of a potent health punch.

One of the dip’s most beneficial matchups is the avocado’s monounsaturated fat and the carotenoids found in tomatoes. A powerful antioxidant responsible for boosting immune health, carotenoids are typically found in red or orange colored foods, like carrots, sweet potatoes and tomatoes.

But the food compound is difficult to absorb into the body without an assist from a fat source. Enter, the avocado and it’s 77% total caloric load of fatty acids.

And even more health benefits are unlocked by pairing the nutrient-dense oelic acids of avocados with the biting citrus acid of lime and corrosive power of garlic and onion’s allium-related compounds. The combinations activate certain nutrients in some ingredients, and make others much more readily absorbable into the body, ensuring that when we take a bite of the delicious dip, we’re really wringing out every last drop of its nutritional might.

So you could certainly eat all the ingredients of your Guac Box separately – and we wouldn’t blame you. They’re individually delicious and nutritional power houses.

But with guacamole as with society, we’re so much better when we all work together.