Keto avokado

The word avocado comes from the Spanish aguacate, which derives from the Nahuatl (Mexican) word āhuacatl [aːˈwakat͡ɬ],[42] which goes back to the proto-Aztecan *pa:wa.[43] In Molina's Nahuatl dictionary "auacatl" is given also as the translation for compañón "testicle",[44] and this has been taken up in popular culture where a frequent claim is that testicle was the word's original meaning. This is not the case, as the original meaning can be reconstructed rather as "avocado" – rather the word seems to have been used in Nahuatl as a euphemism for "testicle".[45][46][47]

The modern English name comes from a rendering of the Spanish aguacate as avogato. The earliest known written use in English is attested from 1697 as avogato pear, later avocado pear (due to its shape), a term sometimes corrupted to alligator pear.[48][49][4]

Domestication, leading to genetically distinct cultivars, possibly originated in the Tehuacan Valley[28] in the state of Puebla, Mexico.[29] There is evidence for three possible separate domestications of the avocado, resulting in the currently recognized Guatemalan (quilaoacatl), Mexican (aoacatl) and West Indian (tlacacolaocatl) landraces.[30][31] The Guatemalan and Mexican and landraces originated in the highlands of those countries, while the West Indian landrace is a lowland variety that ranges from Guatemala, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador to Peru,[30] achieving a wide range through human agency before the arrival of the Europeans.[31] The three separate landraces were most likely to have already intermingled[a] in pre-Columbian America and were described in the Florentine Codex.[31]

The fruit of domestic varieties have smooth, buttery, golden-green flesh when ripe. Depending on the cultivar, avocados have green, brown, purplish, or black skin, and may be pear-shaped, egg-shaped, or spherical. For commercial purposes the fruits are picked while unripe and ripened after harvesting. The nutrient density and extremely high fat content of avocado flesh are useful to a variety of cuisines and are often eaten to enrich vegetarian diets.[11]