Hey there, are you into avocados? WHAT??? WHY NOT? Oh, you said you are... Sorry, I misheard-ed you, good thing you're not out of your mind.
The avocado, which the name comes from a language called nahuatl - historically Aztec and now spoken by the Nahuan people - it's spelled, originally, ahuacatl, which on their language means "testicles" (probably because the fruit typically grows in pairs).
A friend of mine use to say the avocado is "a little celestial caress in our earthly misery", wise words he has.
The avocado is cultivated for more than 7 thousand years by mankind and it grows on the avocado-pear tree, a tree which is native from the south of the Mexican nation.
 |
This is the Laurus Persea tree (or how we call it in Brazil, the Persea Americana).
This one produces the most common type of avocado in the brazilian territory, the "Bacon".
It can reach over 30 meters of height , depending on how it is cultivated. |
The native specie is the so called criollo, but nowadays we have got a huge number of varieties, like the:
Bacon (which you know how its tree look like)
the Fuerte
the Gwen
the Hass
the Lam Hass
the Pinkerton
the Reed
or even the Zutano
(a big thanks to the californiaavocado.com website for providing the images)
As we can see, the Incas, Mayas and Aztecas had quite a good taste for food, what would be of us, mere humans, without the chocolato, for example? And of course, our dear avocado... Which by the way, have been being cultivated by them (pre-Columbians) since the prehistoric times. So you can picture it, when the Iberians colonizers arrived in The New World, there was avocado even in the Amazon and, well, the portuguese and spanish had the only reaction possible, they got delighted with that fruit. Undoubtedly they had a good taste.
It was introduced to the brazilian lands in the XIX century - that messed up century had to have something at least useful for this country.
May I say that a good avocado is the one that's firm and a little heavy; and it is good to consume when it is late (never early, that's a sin if you do so). A sign of when the avocado is late is when you poke it, if it is a bit soft it is late, if not... well, it is not, get your hands out of it.
Nutritionally speaking, the avocado is a fruit über complete. It carries the vitamins A, C, E and K, apart from the B complex. It is rich in minerals like calcium, iron, phosphorus and it also replaces potassium; it contains fiber, which helps on regulating the bowel health.
The avocado also contains beta-sitosterol, a natural anti-inflammatory, which operates as an anti-oxidant as well; combating the high glucose and the cortisol (the stress hormone).
It also is rich in glutathione, which prevents premature aging (and now you now the reason for all those avocados mask you see when shopping cosmetics). It contains lutein, which is a strong agent preventing diseases in our eyes; and last but not least, it contains folic acid, which is a very strong agent when it comes to protects our heart (unfortunately not from breaking) and from the CVA (cerebrovascular accident).
Among its many advantages, the avocado is great on absorbing other foods nutrients. For example, a super-combo would be slicing the avocado to a salad with carrots and tomatoes, because the avocado helps on absorbing tomato's lycopene and the carrot's betacarotene. The avocado also prevents diseases such as: anemia, hepatic steatosis (liver fat) and the metabolic syndrome and related disorders.
The avocado has got good fat as well, like the monounsaturated and polyunsaturated, which help on the combat against the bad cholesterol; and it also contain a huge amount of unsaturated fat, such as omega 9, omega 7 and omega 6.
Researches with voluntaries show that after a week eating avocados everyday, they had a reduction of 22% on LDL (bad cholesterol) and a raise of 11% on the HDL (good cholesterol).
The avocado, just as many things in this world, is a target for injustice. People say it puts on weight, that's bollocks right, in fact, the avocado turns off your anxiety of eating sweet, your hunger for sugar, and on top of that it proportionates the sensation of satiety. Conclusion: the avocado also helps you on getting that fat off your butt (getting fit, a bit more politely).
The avocado show us how the free-trade agreements between countries are sometimes used as a tool by the governments to control people's delight. For example, the exportation of mexican avocados to the United States was interrupt in 1994, right after the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) took effect. Happyfully they revoked this absurd but not without a commercial war between Mexico and the US, in which Mexico's threaten to impose economic sanctions against the american corn. The excuse given by the americans to impose their embargo against our beloved avocado was that they "feared to have the bactrocera oleae (fruit fly) invading American soil through the avocados from Mexico" (by the way, it happened, it is a invasive species in the US now); but their true intention was to protect the californian avocado.
Nowadays the commerce of avocado between Mexico and the United States is relatively free, but unfortunately the mexican avocado faces another threat and this one is a well known by the mexicans: los carteles. With the reinstatement of the commerce of avocados between 'murica and la tierra azteca, profits went high as shit in this economic sector and since then, the cultivation of avocados has turned into a incredibly profitable business, moreover with the increase of world's demand on this fruit from the gods.
There is a state in Mexico called Michoacán, that produces half of the avocados consumed in the WHOLE world; so all that lucrativeness of the avocado producers attracted attention from the drugs cartels and they infested the province of Michoacán around the year of 2007, and started to extort the avocados producers of that region.
The modus operandi of cartels like the Los Zetas (which I know realise I've forgotten to tell you they were the ones infesting Michoacán) work by getting in touch with producers and imposing a fee, which the producers are obligated to pay, otherwise they'll suffer sanctions like the confiscation of the producer's land - so the cartel starts running the avocado farm instead of the legal producers -, to even the threat of death to the producers and their families. Facing these threats, the producers are forced to pay the fee to the cartels plus taxes to the State, apart from the money that goes to their providers et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
And well... Having the avocado production being so profitable, of course it didn't just attracted the criminals from Los Zetas, other cartels also had the interest in the Michoacán region. To be specific, the Los Zetas cartel got in to a real war against the La Familia Michoacana cartel and lost, lost badly. The leader of the La Familia Michoacana at the time was Nazario Moreno González, a serial killer and drug trafficker and also a ex-pastor, which some say, rewrote the christian bible to justify his actions somehow. A psycho, to say the least - but hey, it's not like it is the first time it happens, we all know what the Church did to convince people that burning the "witches" was alright.
And this cartel, La Familia Michoacana, was deposed by another cartel called Los Caballeros Templarios in 2011.
It is important to say that the Federal Government of Mexico had the fucked up idea to spread a hoax saying that the Armada de Mexico (military) had killed González - and well, goddammit cabrón, he's a narcotrafficker, that's everything he'd ask for, the guy has a target painted on his back for fuck's sake - in december of 2010 and on that year and the one that followed, Michoacán had posters putted by the Familia Michoacana on the streets, saying that González was alive and well (no shit!) and that no one would even dare to try to kill him.
What actually happened was that the La Familia Michoacana themselves started the rumors about González death and the government bought it and took it as real without further investigations; and while all that was occurring, González had been founding Los Caballeros Templario, so it could replace La Familia Michoacana.
Back focusing on the avocados, Los Caballeros Templarios became highly sophisticated, for instance, they knew how many avocados the producers harvested periodically, the type of the avocado, how many they sold, how much they profited and much, much more. "WTF Will, how did they get this kind of data?" Well mate, from the government itself; specifically, from the The Mexican Bureau of Standards (DGN, Dirección General de Normas).
Be aware that what government has of data about us people it's incomparable to what the nazis had of data about the jews back in the day; and the problem here is not that they aren't careful enough keep these kind of data from leaking, is that they do give these informations to big corporations like Google, Microsoft, Apple etc., and it is even worse when these corps. give our personal data to agencies like the NSA and the GCHQ.
Anyways, The Wall Street Journal once compared the mexican avocados to the african blood diamonds; I do agree they went a little far but it's all a matter of perspective; look, check the facts, a human tragedy caused by political reasons and fascist corporative lobbies - like the De Beers Diamond Jewellry, founded by Cecil Rhodes, the man that probably committed the largest African genocide in history in association with the Rothschild family. And by the way, Rhodes may be burning in hell if there's one, but the Rothschild family still carries his legacy by owning the De Beers. You probably don't know, but they control 44% of the world's diamond market and there was once a time when they controlled 90% of the market, always using slaves -, and the problem of the blood avocados is extremely serious because the Los Caballeros Templarios cartel are being strengthened by extorting those poor producers using the fees impositions and it is common for the producers not being able to pay the fees and going bankrupt, having to leave their lands so the cartel does not murder them; and by doing that, the producer's land becomes cartel's; and all that sad situation leaves the avocados even more expensive to us, consumers (yes, "us", your country probably buys avocado from Mexico too).
And the situation has gotten so untoward, that the mexican military alongside with the police had to get in scene patrolling the roads from which the trucks full of cartel-controlled avocados were using to drive through and, well... let's say that the mexican military/police is not very honorable one... That being, both, the military and the police risked collusion with the unacceptable and became associates with the cartels.
But the people shall not let these criminal do whatever the fuck they want and just take their property like that, no no no no, they're mexican, strong man and women, best trashy soap-opera creators, world's first engineers, lucha libre en lo corazón y fuerza en los brazos, cabrón.
The producers and their family had to react as the government had failed, so they gathered and started buying weaponry, they built strategies against Los Caballeros Templarios and finally started taking their land back, proving that most of the time, a well armed civilian population is best choice against inside threats.
Ohhh, the avocados... Sometimes I wonder if the ambrosia eaten in the Olympus wasn't in fact, the avocado. It may has its peculiarities depending on the region where it is cultivated, but the avocado, the avocado is always there.
See you on the next post! Eat avocados!
P.S.: By the way I was not sponsored by any avocado producer nor seller to write this post. Although if you are a producer or seller, I am not refusing any money. Call my agent so we can get to an agreement.
Follow Us
If you fell down yesterday, stand up today!