Everybody loves avocado! It’s a tasty and highly nutritious fruit super beneficial to our health. As it happens with most fruits, the usual thing is to eat the pulp, or the fleshy part, and discard the seeds. Yet, if you do that with avocado seeds you’ll miss a lot. The truth is avocado seeds are rich in polyphenols and contain a large number of different classes of phytochemicals. Avocado seeds have even higher polyphenol content and greater antioxidant activity than the pulp, making them great to protect skin and body cells from oxidative damage.
Avocado seeds benefits
Even if considered a low-value waste product, avocado seeds have a series of properties that can boost skin but not only. Read on to find out what benefits avocado seeds can bring to you.
Rejuvenates skin
Consuming avocado seed oil could help improve the natural skin rejuvenation process. This research explains that avocado seed oil has a greater variety of fatty acids than pulp oil. Thus, consuming healthy fats, such as those found in avocado seeds, can help the skin maintain its elasticity and give it a healthy look. Also, avocado seeds contain antioxidant substances that can neutralize the free radicals produced daily in the cellular metabolism that contribute to skin aging. Moreover, avocado seed oil can boost collagen synthesis and help with concerns like redness.
Fights acne
Although avocado seeds don’t have specific properties to banish acne, they have astringent properties when grated and turned into powder. If the powder is mixed with a few drops of water and applied to pimples, it can help dry them. Also, it’s rich in vitamin B6 and antioxidants, two components known to improve acne.
Helps to lose weight
Losing weight is very different from burning fat. A set of characteristics gives this property to avocado seeds: they reduce glucose absorption and help maintain stable blood sugar levels, avoiding the secretion of insulin peaks and ferocious hunger attacks. This, added to its satiating and regulating effect on intestinal transit, could help maintain weight or facilitate its loss in slimming diets.
Improve asthma
Avocado seeds are rich in vitamins and minerals, especially vitamin C and E, in addition to possessing anti-inflammatory and immune system enhancing properties. Due to its antioxidant content known as glutathione (which helps the body rid itself of pollutants and other toxins unhealthy for the respiratory system), adding avocado seed to your diet can make a good relief from asthma triggers. I mean, they can help in the treatment of asthma, but in no case are they a substitute for the usual medication indicated in asthma cases.
Serves to exfoliate the skin
The key to a peel is the mechanical motion action itself and the solid particles. In this case, you can exfoliate the skin with anything that has hard particles, as long as the product does not irritate the skin. For instance, coffee scrub is as good! So, exfoliating your skin with avocado seed powder can be a fabulous experience — see here how to DIY.
Prevents cardiovascular disease
Besides being rich in amino acids, avocado seeds contain essential fatty acids, which provide cardiovascular benefits. The particularity of fatty acids is that the body cannot synthesize them naturally, so you need to add them through the diet. These fats reduce the levels of bad LDL cholesterol, which favors the fluidity of the blood passage through the arteries and veins and prevents the formation of thrombi. Furthermore, fatty acids also contribute to increasing the levels of (good) HDL cholesterol, which helps to eliminate the particles of bad cholesterol and has cardio-protective properties.
Facts about avocado seed
- Several studies have proved that avocado seed has more soluble fiber than any other food.
- Avocado seeds are excellent for fighting inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract. In South America, it’s widely used as a remedy for stomach infections.
- Avocado seed contains phenolic compounds that can help prevent intestinal ulcers and bacterial infections.
- The flavonol contained in the seed can help prevent the growth of tumors.
- The seed strengthens the immune system, and its antioxidants slow down the aging process.
- It seems that the anti-inflammatory properties of avocado seeds help with arthritis conditions.
- According to qigong medicine, the avocado seed contains high qi energy levels that help us feel in tune with life’s energy.
- The seed can be consumed in many ways: it can be dried, grated, and roasted. You can add it to salads, drink it in teas, smoothies, and shakes, or consumed it alone — if you don’t mind the bitter taste.
