I’m old enough to remember when avocados were called avocado pears and were considered to be exotic. I remember a cousin told his father that eating avocados would be very good for his health. His father had serious heart problems so he manfully acquired a taste for avocados and proudly told his heart specialist of this feat. His heart specialist just about had a fit with his legs up! Nothing could have been worse for his heart.

So I’ve always been annoyed when people parrot how good avocados are for your health because they’re really not. When I’ve pointed out to people in the past that avocados aren’t all they’ve been cracked up to be I’ve had people looking at me like I must be mad. Apart from anything else they’re very calorific not to mention full of fat. Almost 200 calories in an average avocado. Coupled with the wine which often seems to be consumed at the same time (to make them palatable?) as anything containing avocados – it’s a bad day for the waistline, 200 calories also being in the average small glass of wine. They might have contributed hugely to the obesity epidemic which is engulfing the population.

While I’m in pontification mode, don’t overdo the banana eating either, unless you’re a long distance runner. Full of energy giving goodness they may be, but if you don’t use up that energy it will convert to fat fast. The UK apparently gets through more bananas than any other country in Europe, possibly the world, and those statistics have shadowed the obesity rates too.

I’ve always eaten loads of fruit and veg, long before ‘five a day’ became a mantra. My father did have a fruit shop when I was a youngster so I ate all sorts of fruit, well you can’t let it go to waste you know. But really nutrition and health wise you can’t do much better than eating apples, in fact to be on the safe side two a day would be even better at keeping that doctor away! It’s keeping the digestion moving that makes the difference.

This modern fashion for taking sips of water from water bottles is also not as good for you as drinking a good glass of water before and after a meal.

If you’ve ever made compost in a compost bin you’ll have noticed that if it is too dry then it doesn’t compost at all just sits there and I’m pretty sure that the same is true of the human digestive system. Those wee sips of water don’t do the trick and everything just lies in the stomach for ages, with plenty of time to convert to fat.

Well that got that off my chest, no matter how boring and uninteresting it might have been. I feel better for it.

If you want to read one of many avocado articles around at the moment have a look at this Guardian article