Lifestyle

You Can Get Paid To Eat Avocados For 6 Months Because Dreams Do Come True

by Julie Scagell
Image via Istock/Getty Images

An avocado a day keeps the weight away?

This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill. Researchers from four different universities will pay you to eat an avocado a day for the next six months. In a world where everything’s going wrong, this just feels so right.

Researchers from Loma Linda University, Penn State, Tufts University, and the University of California, Los Angeles are looking for 1,000 lucky participants to help determine whether avocados actually help people lose weight. I’m pretty sure I just lost at least a pound jumping around my living room at the thought of joining this study. Seeeee, it’s already working.

“The Habitual Diet and Avocado Trial” aims to confirm whether these party-pears are as healthy as people think. We all know avocados are a source of heart-healthy fats and they’re also packed with vitamins C, E, K, B-6, and have been shown to reduce bad cholesterol. But at over 200 calories a pop and 21 grams of fat, are they a food that has weight loss benefits?

Please say yes.

“Since avocados contain the highest fat content of any fruit, it seems illogical to think they might actually help people lose their belly fat,” Loma Linda University researchers said. So they’re setting out to determine just that — asking participants to eat one avocado per day for six months to see if this will help reduce abdominal fat. No word on whether they’ll provide an Avocado Watcher to sit in your kitchen and time the precise 30-second period they’re ripe and prime for consumption before they turn to literal inedible mush.

Each university is looking for 250 guac aficionados who are 25 years of age or older (who aren’t pregnant or trying to conceive) and measure at least 35 to 40 inches around the waist (depending on gender). Once selected, individuals will be put into one of two groups: The test group who will be required to eat one avocado a day for six months and the control group, which can eat no more than two avocados per month during the same period.

Wait. HOLD UP. So, you could potentially enter an avocado study and be forced into only eating two avocados in a 30-day period? I’m no mathematician but that just doesn’t add up.

All participants will receive $300 at the end of the study and because, karma, the control group will also receive 24 additional avocados to enjoy as they please (presumably not all at once, because that would just be cruel). Once all the data is back and has been reviewed by researchers, Wake Forest University will perform the final analysis and deliver the results, Loma Linda University reported.

Good luck to all who are chosen. Avocado toast party at your house.