The avocado toast you eat is less nutritious than the traditional olive oil toast (and it's unsustainable).

BarcelonaFood trends are like giant waves at sea: they devastate everything so that nothing remains the same. Avocado toast, the current craze that has endured in restaurants and homes for some time, has swept away the trend of bread with extra virgin olive oil and tomato. Besides overtaking it, it's also changing the agricultural landscape, because avocado cultivation has spread to the point that some orange groves and other traditional crops in the Valencian Community have already begun to be replaced by avocado orchards, which are unsustainable because they require much more irrigation. Furthermore, green fruit will never be able to match the nutritional properties of extra virgin olive oil, nor will it ever be as sustainable as an olive tree. In terms of nutrition and water consumption, Extra virgin olive oil wins every battle.

At the University of Barcelona, ​​Professor Rosa Maria Lamuela states that eating a slice of toast with olive oil means ingesting polyphenols, which in turn provides our bodies with more antioxidant and anti-inflammatory compounds that help combat free radicals, the culprits behind cellular aging. This is precisely one of the major differences between olive oil and avocado, with which she has been debating the role of the first meal of the day for years. "The element that avocado and extra virgin olive oil share is oleic acid. This fat is beneficial for the body because it helps prevent cardiovascular disease," says Lamuela, who adds that, nevertheless, "we have more scientific evidence for the benefits of extra virgin olive oil" than for avocado.

To put it another way, we would say that Avocado and extra virgin olive oil are good fats"In the case of olive oil, we know it's so beneficial that it even helps increase the absorption of other bioactive components from other foods," Lamuela points out. Thus, a slice of toast with olive oil, when topped with a freshly picked tomato, will have more nutritional properties than if it's not, because the oil helps to better absorb the tomato's lycopene, a very powerful antioxidant. Furthermore, a slice of toast with extra virgin olive oil has a lower glycemic index than one without, because the oil reduces glucose absorption, preventing a spike in blood sugar after consuming bread—or other starchy foods.

More irrigation for avocados

However, there is one factor that separates avocados from olive oil: sustainability. The amount of water an avocado needs is much higher than that of an olive tree, which has thrived in the Mediterranean for thousands of years. The differences in cubic meters are significant, always higher for avocados, but the figures vary depending on who conducts the study. When avocado advocacy groups carry out the research, the figures are lower than when groups linked to farmers in general report them. "What we know for sure is that growing avocados is not sustainable because the irrigation required is high," says a professor at the University of Barcelona. For his part, Ramon Estruch, a physician and professor at the University of Barcelona, maintains that avocados and olive oil, more than any other food, should be compared. "In the Mediterranean diet, we recommend consuming four to five tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil a day, along with fruits and vegetables, and avocados fall under the category of fruits." The fact is, then, that the avocado is a fruit, which provides oleic acid, that is, the healthy fat, and that is why "the avocado is a healthy fruit".

However, the benefits of extra virgin olive oil are superior to those of avocado because oleic acid is absorbed better in liquid than solid form. Furthermore, Estruch agrees with Lamuela that the polyphenols in extra virgin olive oil are an added benefit because they are so important that they have a high capacity to prevent cardiovascular disease. And all of this "is provided it is well absorbed by the body when consumed in liquid form."

To continue, the doctor, affiliated with the Mediterranean Diet Foundation, points out that there are studies from the United States that claim eating an avocado a day is healthy. "Of course, they consume less olive oil and more avocados, which is why they have different perspectives, but in our Mediterranean diet context, olive oil is very important."

First new olive oil market, in Plaça Catalunya in Barcelona

Throughout Sunday, and until eight in the evening, Barcelona's Plaça Catalunya hosts the first new oil market, in which fifty producers of extra virgin olive oil from all over Catalonia sell their oil and demonstrate its use in cooking.