Did You Eat An Avocado Today?

Dear Reader,

I hope you’re well and that you’re enjoying your Saturday. 

Last week, my Instagram feed was flooded with clips from an Udaipur wedding so extravagant it felt like a film set. Ranveer Singh bounced around the stage to ‘Ainvayi Ainvayi’, Shah Rukh Khan swayed to ‘Chaleya’ beside the bride, and Jennifer Lopez belted out ‘Jenny from the Block’ beneath a canopy of chandeliers.

Coincidentally, for this week’s episode of The Signal Brief, I ended up speaking to chef Nishant Choubey, who was the food curator at this star-studded wedding. He told me that one of the surprise stars of the night wasn’t a performer, but a counter–a glossy spread of six avocado dishes that guests kept coming back for.

“I had six avocado dishes; I had an avocado filo pouch. I had sushi and ceviche..tandoori avocados too turned out well,” he said. 

Like Nishant, chefs across the country are experimenting with this exotic green fruit; they’re making avocado pani-puri in Bengaluru and avocado dosa in Hyderabad. Avocado toast has become a staple at cafés like Blue Tokai and Third Wave. Many consumers are trying to add avocados to their kitchens too, because of the fruit’s health benefits. 

In fact, industry estimates suggest that since 2014, avocado imports have increased by over 11,500%, and could cross 20,000 tonnes next year. That is a small country’s worth of green fruit arriving on plates all over India.

India isn’t the first country to suddenly embrace this fruit. The avocado obsession followed a similar trajectory in the US too. Most Americans saw the fruit as exotic and unfamiliar until 1992, when the US signed the North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA, with Mexico. The treaty removed tariffs on Mexican exports, including avocados. At the same time, several avocado importing organisations began a concerted marketing campaign to highlight the fruit’s health benefits: Vitamin E and heart-healthy monounsaturated fats. 

By the mid-2010s, avocado toasts were all over American social media. In 2015, ‘avocado’ became the most pinned food on Pinterest.  

In India, avocados started becoming popular around 2020, says Nishant. Today, imports are rising sharply. And though places like Ooty, Kodaikanal and Coorg have been growing Indian avocados for decades, farmers told me they prefer cultivating Hass avocados since Hass avocados, with their dark, pebbly skin, fetch much higher prices than the smooth-skinned Indian butter fruit.

So what exactly sets these avocados apart? And is this fruit actually essential for good health, or is it just another global trend that we’ve absorbed?

I answer the above questions and more in the latest episode of The Signal Brief, where you’ll also hear from nutritionists, farmers, consumers and chefs. You can find us on Youtube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

I’d love to know, do you eat avocados? Do you like the taste, or do you think it’s all hype? And, be honest, have you ever struggled to figure out if one is ripe?

If you have any feedback, do write to us at [email protected], or reach me directly on Instagram or Twitter at @thesignaldotco, or via email at [email protected].

Thanks for listening, and have a rejuvenating weekend.

Best,
Kudrat
on behalf of The Core

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