The Good Fat: A Perfectly Creamy Avocado Smoothie...I'm Calling It 'The Fat Albert'

Preparing foods, cooking, and eating are important things around my house. Luckily, for the most part, it's all centered around wholesome natural ingredients and selecting the healthiest options out there. My boyfriend recently got into making avocado smoothies. He found a basic recipe of 1 whole avo with 2 cups 2% milk and some agave nectar. While delicious - it's quite a decadent treat. Lucky for him he keeps very physically active and has a metabolism of an over active child (of course that in no way implies that i feel he ever acts as such). While i appreciate the taste of his avo shake, my metabolism could hardly support such a hefty calorie load in one beverage (almost 600 calories and 40g fat). After playing around in the kitch with a handful of avos and other fun ingredients, i came up with this easy to swallow recipe for about half the calories and fat. My heart healthy avo shake is a little lighter than my love's but still hearty and deliciously decadent:

The Fat Albert Avo Shake

1/2 a ripe hass avocado
1 cup original/plain rice milk, I used Good Karma's Brand, cuz who couldn't use a little good karma in their day? (you could also opt for skim milk or whatever non-dairy alternative you like)
1/2 a d'anjou pear
1 tsp honey
3+ ice cubes.

Toss it all in your high powered blender (less the avo peel, need i say that?) and give it a good whirl. Avo shakes are thick and creamy, so if you want to thin it down, merely add a little more milk/milk alternative, ice, or a little water.

Avocados are about 63% monounsaturated fat. These are the 'good fats' if you will. The kind of fat that helps to lower LDL (lousy) cholesterol. Remember, it's important that our diets contain about 15-30% healthy fats. These help the fat soluable vitamins permeate our cell walls. Avos are also chalk full of fiber ,vitamins E, K, B6, and C, and have more potassium than a medium banana. Fats are rich in caloric value (9 calories per gram), because avos are rich in fat calories and fiber they tend to satiate and hold you over longer. If you are having a hearty portion of avo in your day, just cut back on oils and fats that may be in your diet in other places.

Nutrition info for "The Fat Albert":

310 calories
17 g of fat
9.5 g of fiber (who knew avo's had so much heart healthy fiber?! A whole avo has 14 grams!)
3 g protein

(you can always add an unflavored protein powder booster, such as Jarrow's but this does effect the taste of the shake. Adding on tbsp of Jarrows rice protein will add an additional 11 grams of protein, 55 calories, and 1 gram of fat)