Health, wealth, happiness. I'm Dr. Michael Grecker and you're listening to the

Nutrition Facts podcast and while I can't promise you all of those things, if you

take a listen to the evidence-based nutrition found in this podcast, chances are

you'll learn something that you can use to make a positive change in your diet

and in your health. My job here is to bring you the information you need to make

that reality possible. On today's show we have a light breaking news about

avocados. Who would have thought avocados would make headlines well today they

do? When paired with greens, healthy sources of fat such as from avocados may

maximize nutrient absorption as many of the nutrients greens are famous for are

fat soluble including beta-carotene, lutein, vitamin K and z-azanthin. Try

spelling that one in your next spelling bee. So we had to ask can guacamole lower

your cholesterol as well as other whole food sources of fat such as nuts or is

it just avocado industry spin. If you look at avocado board sponsored reviews

they like to brag that avocados are the richest known fruit source of

phytosterols which are cholesterol-lowering nutrients found in plant foods. The

operative word though is fruit. Yes there are more phytosterols than avocados

compared to other fruit but the reason that's such a misleading statement is that

phytosterols are fat soluble substances. Most other fruits hardly even fatten them at

all. So of course avocados are going to come out on top compared to other fruit.

But let's compare phytosterol content of avocados to nuts and seeds. One

avocado has about a hundred milligrams of phytosterols but on the same scale

sesame seeds and tahini have 400 pistachios, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds

...