Hass Avocado Board Partners with American Heart Association for Fresh Avocados – Love One Today Campaign

The Hass Avocado Board (HAB) has joined the American Heart Association to galvanize Americans to eat the recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables every day, an endeavor that has the potential to limit deaths from cardiovascular diseases, stroke and diabetes annually. The four-year alliance aligns HAB’s science-based food and wellness education program Love One Today, which encourages Americans to include fresh Hass avocados in everyday healthy eating plans, with American Heart Association’s recommendation of an overall healthy eating pattern emphasizing fruits and vegetables first. HAB’s support of the American Heart Association comes at a time when it’s setting its sights on a new five-year strategic plan to fuel industry prosperity and focus on a vision of catapulting the Hass avocado to America’s number one consumed fruit.

Avocados contain naturally good fats, and are a cholesterol-free whole food that can be used in a variety of ways. As such, a core focus of the relationship will be the certification and development of Heart-Check certified recipes to distribute in support of highly targeted food- and fitness-focused campaigns and observances, including Avocado Bibimbap, Kale Avocado Salad with Roasted Carrots and Tomatillo Touchdown Guacamole. A total of 25 fresh avocado recipes have been reviewed against science-based criteria and have been given American Heart Association’s highly recognized Heart-Check mark signifying the recipes fit into the American Heart Association’s approach to a healthy lifestyle, with more recipes to come in 2017. 

“We look forward to showing Americans, particularly Millennials, how something as simple as adding just one more cup of fruits and veggies to daily eating patterns has the power to improve diet scores for millions of Americans, and can help save thousands of lives,” says Dr. Eduardo Sanchez, chief medical officer for Prevention and Center for Health, American Heart Association. “Our recently launched color initiative was designed to help transform the American diet. Through the support of Fresh Avocados—Love One Today, we will amplify our efforts to help consumers better understand the critical health benefits small changes can have on the overall health of all Americans.”

color encourages Americans to change how they eat, for the better. Fresh Avocados—Love One Today is the official “National Recipe Host,” of the American Heart Association’s color initiative to encourage consumers to add colorful fruits and vegetables to their plates, in fun and engaging ways. The color initiative gives consumers an inspirational experience while teaching them how to make healthy choices with the tips and information they need to be successful. The campaign aims to make it as easy as possible for Americans to add one more cup of colorful fruits and vegetables, like fresh avocados, onto their plates each day.

“Fresh Avocados—Love One Today is delighted to join the American Heart Association to make lives richer, healthier and more colorful. Our desire to identify new and varied ways to incorporate avocados into everyday healthy eating patterns has always been about our overarching commitment and drive to build healthier lives,” says Emiliano Escobedo, executive director of the Hass Avocado Board. “The produce industry has long been an important factor in adding color to consumers’ eating habits, and while our alliance with the American Heart Association will spotlight how avocados can continue to contribute to living a healthy lifestyle, we hope the efforts will raise overall awareness of the important role all fruits and vegetables have in improving the quality of life for millions, and ultimately helping to save thousands of lives.”

In 2010, HAB established a nutrition research program to increase awareness and improve understanding of the unique benefits of avocados to human health. Cardiovascular health is a key pillar of the Love One Today program. Emphasis on this pillar stems from the variety of health benefits from good fats, including: dietary fats, particularly those high in good fats, are a major source of energy and help the body absorb fat-soluble nutrients; eating foods high in good fats like fresh avocados in place of foods high in bad fats has been shown to help reduce risk factors for disease and promote overall health; and good fats, when substituted for bad fats, can lower bad cholesterol levels.

The 2016 Dietary Guidelines for Americans emphasizes that small shifts like moving away from bad fats to good fats can make a big difference in promoting overall health.

Confusion about dietary fats may result in missed opportunities for healthful eating. This is especially alarming when considering heart disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S. and eating better is one important way to help prevent it.

Nov. 2 is American Heart Association’s National Eating Healthy Day, an annual reminder for Americans to commit to healthier eating. Fresh Avocados—Love One Today and American Heart Association plan to support the celebration via Heart-Check certified fresh avocado recipes, co-branded promotional materials and helpful toolkits, distributed via traditional and social media channels and more.