I wouldn’t write a health blog if I didn’t wholeheartedly believe in the importance of nutrition in health. I also absolutely believe in the power and natural solutions of Lazarus Labs (shameless yet true plug here) and believe that just like many of the simple non prescriptive alternatives we offer here, proper nutrition provides an important piece of the puzzle in solving the riddle of true health.

With that being said, I have been a permanent passenger on the Kale bus since it arrived and have loved avocados for as long as I can remember. LOVE-LOVE. Not like a “No, we are fine, I love the food here even if we are at this very small table by the kitchen and the dumpster” but a real “I can and have sat down and inhaled two avocados before they were really even ripe” kind of love.  I just recently showed a house guest my secret recipe to guacamole and felt almost embarrassed at how great it tasted and how little I actually did. We both looked at each other and said, “that’s it and it tastes like that?”

But, good grief! Don’t you feel a little bit sorry for all the other vegetables out there? Are they secretly jealous of the avocado and like a group of Mean Girls quietly plotting the best way to get the cool veggie to fall flat into the cafeteria next to the jocks and cheerleaders?

And that’s why AvocadoGate has made me giggle. In case you aren’t familiar with this critical yet historical part of history, AvocadoGate shook down like so:

(Note: this explanation is the quick version. Feel free to research both #peagate and #guacamolegate for the details you know you want to know.)

Last summer, a recipe stumbled into mainstream that included peas in guacamole. The world stopped. Even President Obama finally had to weigh in (and peas, no political debates here…#punny). Twitter erupted and everyone had their say.

Almost as soon as that calmed down, celebrity chef Nigella Lawson appeared in her highly anticipated return to television and taught the world how to spread an avocado on a piece of toast. Once again, the world stopped. Even more people slammed Lawson for her wasted airtime in explaining what anyone of us could do (see above story of houseguest and me).

And now the battle continues to wage on in the world of lists. Lists are very trendy right now. Those cute little infographic charts are everywhere for anything.  The debate today is

Will Avocados be the Super Food to Beat All Super Foods? When the term “superfood” was generated, I loved the idea. Give me a list of healthy foods that are going to make me look better, feel better, sleep better, and live better. Yes!

But now that we have determined that there are bad foods, good foods, and SUPER foods and talked about it ad nauseum, I think it is time to think about something else. Why? Because it is a marketing tool.

A Superfood is defined as “a non-medical term popularized in the media to refer to foods that can have health-promoting properties such as reducing one's risk of disease or improving any aspect of physical or emotional health. So-called superfoods may have an unusually high content of antioxidants, vitamins, or other nutrients. It is important to note that there is no accepted medical definition of a superfood” Click Here to Read More at Medicinenet.com

Wait, what? That’s correct: so-called…no accepted medical definition… a non-medical term… popularized in the media…

Yet, according the nutritionist Dr. Joanna McMillan, “Our obsession with including ‘superfoods’ into our diet has never been so prevalent. Where people go wrong is that they think a superfood is the be all and end all — when in reality no food is complete nutrition and won’t provide all the health benefits you need” (www.news.com.au).

So, is it ok to mock the avocado now? Are we allowed to publicly laugh at the cool kid’s topple from famedom?  Do we throw away our 465 page kale cookbook now?

No, but we really do need to think about what it is that we are searching for in the attack of the avocado. Isn’t it possible we ate a whole bunch of seaweed and avocado and kale and are now just mad because we still look the same with a slightly greenish tint?

A superfood is not the answer. Blowing up Twitter over a pea in guacamole or the silly simplicity of spreading an avocado on a piece of toast is not the panacea of a diet gone wrong.

Hungryrunnergirl is a great “keeping it real” blogsite and she recently posted the following words of wisdom that I thought of today while writing. She shared,

So, again, is an avocado worth wasting time hashtagging? Or is it really worth buying in bulk? In fashion, a “one size fits all” garment is usually a disaster. Isn’t it time we admitted the same thing in our diet?

As we move from trend to trend in nutrition, perhaps we need to see that the SUPER is not the answer when attached to SUPERfood or SUPERsize but only when attached to SUPERyou. Avocados and Kale aren’t the cool kids: we are. With some super dedication, super research and super motivation, Clark Kent will be outta here and before you know it, you will be flying healthy and happy.