I’ve been meeting with a nutritionist to help with weight loss. They’ve given great tips, like lower sodium and sugar, increase veggies and water intake. One recommended I just don’t get & can’t find research on is avoiding avocados & bananas. They say it’s “dense” but I just don’t understand. Does any one have any research/info on this?
Probably because they’re more caloric than other fruit, Bananas have less fiber and more sugar than most fruit. Btw fiber is good for making you feel full so more fibrous fruits but also legumes etc is a good idea
I’m no nutritionist but from my view, there’s no reason to avoid fruits unless you have a specific medical condition / allergy. I’ve never heard of an unhealthy fruit. Even if these two fruits are more calorically dense than other fruits, they’re still healthy and in the grand scheme of things, pretty low calorie.
I can only guess as to their reasoning, of course, but it might be because of the relatively high sugar content of bananas (12 g per 100 g) and fat content of avocados (15 g per 100 g), which also makes them relatively high in calories, for a fruit (160 kcal per 100 g).
Personally I wouldn’t necessarily trust any expert that recommends avoiding a food entirely (unless you are allergic etc.). A healthy diet is one that includes as many things as possible instead of excluding them.
Unless you have a specific allergy to these foods, no one, in the history of the world has gained weight eating them. Source- I used to eat over 30 bananas and at least 2 avocados a day and had 11% body fat at the time. Now I only eat 6-7 bananas a day. Does this person advertise them self as a ‘nutritionist’? That’s kinda a red flag. Anyone can call them self that. Look for a registered dietician.
This is like the difference between a licensed massage therapist and a body rub parlour.
Well you can eat banana if it fits your calorie goals, a banana and avacado are high calorie and low on protein, which makes it last choice to include in diet, as eating those will most likely meet your calorie goal, without meeting your protein goal, so it’s not about they are high in calories, but at same time low in protein too, and during weightloss diet, it’s quite difficult to meet protein requirements when calorie intake is reduced.. Hope you get an idea
Calling any whole food dense is like calling an automatic car less fuel efficient than a manual, without addressing the planes trains and automobiles. I really wouldn’t worry about bananas and avocados; their fiber content make them very difficult to consume too much of. You can eat 500 calories easy in a piece of pizza, but it would take like 5 bananas to do so.
Avocado is a higher calorie food, but bananas are actually relatively low calorie, as they contain nearly 0 fat and fat is the most calorie dense macronutrient(9 cals/gram whereas protein and carbs have 4 cals/gram). Even in comparison to other carbs like bread, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and beans, bananas are lower in calories
Are they a registered dietitian or nutritionist? Make sure you are getting dietary advice from a RD (more knowledge and experience).
Avos and bananas are fine. No extreme restriction of any foods are necessary if you prioritize a healthy, balanced diet.
Avocados are great if you’re doing a keto diet - high fat, very low carb. OTOH if your weight loss approach is based on counting calories rather than avoiding insulinogenic foods, then yeah, I can see how limiting avocado consumption might be a good idea.
My guess is because ripe bananas contain contain a lot of sugar and avocados are pretty fat dense. So if you’re counting your macro nutrients, they could affect your daily intake. For example, I love avocados but 1 avocado has about 21g of fat. My macro goal for fat is 40-60g / day. 1 avocado puts me at about 50% - 30% of my fat goal for the day.
Ripe bananas are pretty carb dense at about 25-30g depending on the size and don’t offer much protein (~1-2g).
I would definitely ask your nutritionalist about their reasoning behind it because I’m sure they have more information to give you. I hope this helps!!