In this HerbSpeak article, we’re going to dive into the seedy truth of why exactly the humble avocado (Persea spp.) is still around, and why they didn’t die off with the animals that dispersed the seed.

For many plants, animals and insects are the most critical aspects of a plant’s life cycle, acting as pollinators or methods of seed dispersal; a method called zoochory. In the avocado’s case, these pollinators must be able to withstand the seed’s mild toxin and manipulate – or eat – the large inner seed.  

How Do You Escape Extinction When Your Pollinators Die?

Avocados shouldn’t exist.

That’s not a claim to make some political statement about the economy, or some social quality of the latest generation. It’s a matter of biology.

Most fruit and berries (of which avocado is the latter) rely on their flesh and seed being eaten whole, then processed through the digestive tract of an animal. Once the seed has gone through the digestive tract and found its way back into the soil, the outer seed coat, called the testa, would then be soft enough for the plant embryo to break through and begin to take root in whatever soil it has found itself in.

Except, there is one problem:

Have you seen how large the pits are?

Furthermore, the skin and pit contain a compound called persin, from the root word ‘Persea’, the avocado’s genus.

This compound is highly toxic to a wide range of animals. Birds, horses, cats, dogs, rodents, you name it… Except, well, humans.

Classically, historians thought that avocados spread with the help of giant ground sloths and mammoths. Those animals, however, have been extinct for a little over 13,000 years.

When the world lost these keystone species, the world also lost a lot of diverse megaflora.

Scientists aren’t sure how, but avocados managed to survive long enough for humans to come around. Perhaps it was a mix of the resilient berries accidentally falling to the ground and being kicked about before sprouting, or perhaps rodents buried the fruits in acidic soils.

This is all speculation, of course. Regardless of how the avocado passed a few measly centuries, humans started eating avocados once they came around. Being one of the only known species to be able to tolerate avocado – or at least remove the skin and seed from the flesh – we decided we liked the things. Several thousand years later, the Mesoamerican people started cultivating the fruit, which was the beginning of our current avocado culture.

But… Why Can Humans Eat Avocados?

There are several reasons why humans can eat avocados where other species cannot. Much of our flavorful advantage comes from the ability to peel it and remove the pits, which contain the largest concentrations of the toxic persin compound.

While the levels of persin are nominal, and our bodies are particularly good at processing out small amounts of many toxins, large amounts of it can still be harmful. (0) Symptoms typically only appear in people with latex allergies, or those who are particularly sensitive to the compound, resulting in vomiting and diarrhea.

Are Humans the Only Species That Can Eat Avocado?

Are you ready for a “Yes, but…” answer?

Yes, humans are the only species that can – and do – eat avocado in the modern world that we know of.

But… Humans are not the only species that can potentially eat avocado. If an animal is large enough to eat an avocado in a single bite, then it should be able to consume the avocado without any negative effect from the persin simply because of its body mass.

For example, rhinos, bison, giraffes, and whales should all be able to consume avocados, at least in small amounts, without any negative effects. Those animals are unfortunately not endemic to the same areas where avocados grow or they simply do not recognize the avocado as food. (I’m looking at you, whales.)

This leaves humans as the single species to consume and cultivate avocados, single-handedly creating a way for the avocado to thrive.

History of the Avocado

Avocado has enjoyed a rich history in human culture over the last few thousand years, despite the avocado only coming into popular use in North America fairly recently. Even in modern history, however, it has long since been involved in deep PR campaigns.

Discovered by the Mesoamericans as Early as 10,000 B.C.E.

There is archaeological evidence that avocados were consumed in Mesoamerica as early as 10,000 B.C.E. (1)

These avocados were revered for their ability to act as an aphrodisiac, stimulate childbirth, and increase overall energy levels.

These claims have not been verified, but it is believed to have been the common usage for the berry by the people in Central America at the time. 

In the early 16^th century, a Spanish conquistador was one of the first people to try an avocado. He gave it a glowing review, stating that the flesh was “a paste similar to butter and of very good taste.” This man may have been the first outsider to have a particularly good guacamole.

From Ahuacatl to Aguacate to Avocado

Since the conquistadors could not pronounce many of the Aztec words, they interpreted what they could for love of this buttery berry. The Aztecs told them of its regional name, Ahuacatl. In sending word back to Spain about the experience, the report detailed a delicious Aguacate.

If you think about it, ‘telephone’ is a game we’ve been playing for a very long time as a species. Why stop there?

The first written record of this being changed to Avocado in English was in 1696 when a man named Hans Sloane referenced it in a text about Jamaican plants. It’s unclear whether he heard it incorrectly as well, or if he just decided Avocado was easier to spell.

In either case, the name stuck as farmers later founded the California Avocado Association in an attempt to market the crop that did fairly well in the drier, arid climates of the American West.

Rudolph Hass Purchases a Seedling

It was 1926 and commercial kitchens were ordering avocados for a hefty price while the common public did not know how to use the strange lump. What a dark time for humanity it was indeed.

A postal employee, Rudolph Hass, purchased an avocado seedling from a Californian farmer. Presumably he enjoyed gardening when he wasn’t trekking around delivering letters because he intended to graft other varieties to the tree to determine the best fruits.

He planted the seedling in his backyard, but unfortunately, the grafts wouldn’t take. Dismayed by the failure, Hass decided to cut the tree down entirely, giving up on his idea of cultivating a new breed of avocado, but his children talked him out of the ordeal because they believed the avocados he ended up with to be superior in flavor.

Hear that? It’s a good reminder that sometimes our ideas are actually pretty good, we just need to let other people experience it, too.

Hass continued cultivating his avocados, and later patented an avocado that had a purplish skin when ripe, and smaller body than other varieties, making it easier to cultivate. Thus, the Hass Avocado took the Californian market by storm.

Unfortunately, Hass made one fatal mistake. That mistake was a partnership with a nurseryman by the name of Harold Brokaw.

Hass never made much on his patent, as his colleague saturated the market demand by selling seedlings to anyone who wanted the crop. Brokaw’s nursery sold out of the Hass Avocado tree every year, which meant that practically ever gardener who shopped there had a Hass Avocado in their backyard.

Hass himself got the short end of the stick, because while patenting plant varieties was not commonplace at this time, it was also easy to cultivate avocado seedlings from the pits inside the fruit; a practice that many people still indulge in, if they have avocados in the home.

California’s Cash Crop

Hass’ cultivation of a smaller and tastier avocado shows us that avocados were becoming popular. While Hass did not profit, he did change the course of avocado history by helping the local Californian farmers cultivate their crop, providing them with an easier cultivar than what they had previously been working with.

Around the same time at the turn of the 19th century, a clothing-and-food retail store by the name of Marks & Spencer claims to have introduced imported avocados to the United Kingdom for sale under the name of “avocado pears.”

Still, neither countries’ populous knew what to do with the crop once they had it in hand, leaving the avocado’s fate to what seemed like a dwindling popularity.

The Rise of the Avocado’s Supreme Reign

In the early 1990s, the California Avocado Association was looking for new ways to market their crop, else it would cease to be profitable for them to continue growing.

What the CAA needed was some way to appeal to the general populous, especially since another event a decade earlier had nearly crippled the crop’s PR: the low-fat diet craze.

Everyone knew that avocados were high in fats (even if those fats were incredibly healthy for you.)

The CAA decided the first step would be to get popular food items onto the market that incorporate the avocado. It didn’t take long for guacamole to start showing up in stores across the country.

While the CAA initially thought they would combat the PR issue by educating the public on good and bad fats, this was quickly abandoned as it would take years (that the avocado industry did not have) for this method of marketing to work. This took the real work of influencing an entire fad diet generation’s opinion on what they consumed.

Instead, they turned to the appeal of a mascot, “Mr. Ripe Guy”, which adorned many old newspaper ads.

Still, the general public would not bat an eye towards the lowly avocado. The CAA attempted to spread the good word of the avocado among the masses, and their missionaries came back in defeat. Mr. Ripe Guy didn’t pan out how they hoped it would.

Instead, they looked to another possibility: the Super Bowl.

For many Americans, this was the one time in the year that no one paid attention to their caloric intake and simply snacked away happily on chips and dip, among other fatty foods.

In 1992, the PR firm Hill & Knowlton orchestrated what was known as the “Guacamole Bowl” where both teams would share their favorite guacamole recipes on air. The public would then vote on which was their favorite after trying the recipes.

That was the jackpot that lit the avocado media on fire. From athletes to news outlets, avocado facts and recipes were filling the homes of Americans, and the avocado trend started ramping up.

An Avocado Future: Is World Domination Next?

Today, over 11 billion pounds of avocados are eaten each year, tripling in number in just under a decade with no sign of stopping, especially as the healthy eating trends have caught wind that avocado fats are, in fact, healthy

While avocados are predominantly cultivated for commercial sale in Mexico and California, they are grown all across the globe and thrive in different climates thanks to human interference. Is world domination next?

It sounds funny, but world domination is ultimately the goal of all plants, so avocados have an unfair advantage with humans on their side. (Think about that next time you take a good, long look at your lawn.)

Unfortunately, this is a problem in itself, because avocados take a significant amount of water to grow. Just last year, an estimated 10 billion liters of water was used in producing avocados on farms in Mexico. Furthermore, like other forms of industrial agriculture, these avocado farms take up valuable space that is contributing to deforestation efforts and overall soil degradation.

Avoquestions:

‘Ey! Your avo’questions are all answered here.

What Were Avocados Originally Used For?

Avocados were originally eaten as an aphrodisiac. The Nahuatl word for avocado, ahuacatl, translates to “testicle.”

Because the avocados grow in pairs and are shaped suspiciously like a version of the male organ, they were thought to help increase the libido and were a sign of fertility to the Aztec people.

The healthy fats and nutritional value of avocados may have also contributed to this belief because it would certainly help boost the energy levels of those who consumed the fruit.

When Were Avocados Domesticated?

Avocados were originally domesticated in Mesoamerica approximately 5,000 years ago. There is archeological record of cultivated avocado seeds and rough plots for planting in Puebla State, Mexico.

There is historical record of the fruit being consumed much earlier than that, though it is believed that the purposeful domestication and cultivation did not occur until sometime between 4,000-2,800 B.C.E.

Who Was the First Person to Eat an Avocado?

It is impossible to tell who the very first person to eat an avocado may have been. As they are known to have been a part of the Mesoamerican culture for at least 10,000 years prior, there is no written record of the first person’s discovery and eating of avocado. Still, the fruit bore with it a lot of cultural significance, easily making it one of the most significant ethnobotanicals in the region.

The first modern, documented account of the avocado is in 1518 when conquistadors first tried the fruit. (1) Avocados were given as a gift to the conquistadors upon their arrival. The report was sent back to England, becoming one of the first accounts of the English having heard about the food.

Are Avocados Really from Mexico?

Yes, the avocados that we know in today’s culture did arise from Mesoamerican culture as it had an important place in the peoples’ diet from well before settlers first set foot on their shores.

There is evidence that the avocado was present in Mexico around 10,000 years ago, and cultivated by the peoples 5,000 years ago. Archaeologist Claude Earle Smithe Jr. discovered the remains of an avocado’s cotyledon within a cave deposit in Tehuacán, Puebla state.

In opposition to this evidence, there are some reports that claim that, due to the overwhelmingly supportive climate for avocado cultivation in 16,000 B.C.E., the fleshy berry may have originated in Africa. The jury is still out on this claim, and today, Avocados are grown across the world.

How Did the Avocado Trend Start?

While this story might vary depending on what part of the world you are in, the avocado trend in the United States is among one of the most explosive.

In the ‘80s, the United States pushed out a new dietary guideline that recommended a low-fat diet, which many people took to include all fats, not just bad fats. This included the avocado’s bountiful fats.

This dealt massive damage to what was the avocado’s somewhat known presence, though many people still didn’t know how to use an avocado or even how to cut it. Because of this, despite commercials and advertisements to combat this negative press, it was not enough for the avocado to regain popularity and the industry continued to suffer. 

As Latin American cuisine became more popular, however, the avocado became more popular as well, and people began to understand how to better use it in everyday dishes. In 1990, the California Avocado Commission (yes, that’s a thing) introduced a mascot called Mr. Ripe Guy to help give rise to a new PR campaign.

Finally, what really cemented the avocado in popularity is showcasing the avocado on the Super Bowl as a part of the “Guacamole Bowl”, where NFL players would share their favorite recipes and taste test samples.

Bam. 70% increase in sales and more interest in the benefits of avocados, which would only continue to grow its popularity as time went on.

Furthermore, as vegan, raw, and vegetarian diets began getting more positive press in 2010 and on, the avocado was put in the spotlight yet again as a great solution to healthy fats and plenty of nutrition with a great taste.

What Happens If You Eat Avocado Skin? 

If you managed to pop a small sliver into your mouth with your latest bite of avocado, you might be fretting over whether it’s safe to eat or not. Thankfully for most people, the only thing that happens is an unpleasant taste.

Moreover, there are people who revere the skin’s nutritional content and purposefully eat it. While this is not advised, as the skin does contain small amounts of persin, it is better just to eat more ripe avocado flesh to obtain the nutrition you are after. The skin is bitter and oddly textured, making for an unpleasant experience all around.

It should be noted that avocado is toxic to most animals, including our beloved cats and dogs, and should not be given to babies as they may be more sensitive to the toxins present.

What Happens If You Eat an Avocado Pit? 

You may have head before that the pit of an avocado is poisonous before, particularly if you were a wayward child looking for an ornery snack.

Fortunately, the truth isn’t as dramatic as your parents probably made it sound. Avocado pits contain a small amount of the fungicidal toxin persin. This toxin is present in the skin, bark, and leaves of the avocado tree, and it is the primary reason why animals cannot eat avocado.

Much like apples and their cyanide content, however, avocado pits only contain a small amount of the toxin. There is not enough to be significantly harmful, even if you were to somehow choke down an entire avocado pit. The toxin only becomes dangerous if eaten in large quantities.