FOR: Sarah So Eun Lee and John Lowe

The avocado is a humble fruit. That’s right, it’s a fruit.

Sure, it can look like an oversized raisin sometimes, but that’s the genius of the avocado. It knows it doesn’t need to be flashy and brightly coloured like an orange, or sweet and juicy like a pineapple, because the avocado, ladies and gentlemen, is the most consistent and versatile of the foods in Mother Nature’s shopping basket.

It’s a food that you can put on your toast for breakfast, mix up in a salad for lunch or add as a side to your favourite chicken and salmon dishes for culinary perfection – not to mention the fact that if you’re feeling peckish in between, it can be used as a dip for your processed carbohydrate of choice.

Other fruits may seduce you with the promise of nectar and honey, only to leave you more disappointed than Asian parents during parent teacher interviews when they’re just not that sweet or juicy. The avocado won’t do that to you though. The avocado knows you may have developed trust issues from other fruits, but it’s here to tell you that if you choose the avocado, those issues can be gone in an instant. Why? Because you will know, every time you cut ripe avocado, you’ll get the same creamy texture and subtle flavour you’ve had with every avocado before it and every avocado after.

With just one avocado, you can journey to Japan through a sushi roll, meander to the Mediterranean with a salad or even visit the Yochi on Lygon Street for an avocado and lime froyo.

In fact, the lineage of the avocado stretches back to the time of the Aztecs, where they realised the aphrodisiac properties and appropriately named the glorious green balls ahuácatl, or testicles. One spoonful of avocado can raise your libido, and – ladies, look away for a moment – if you’re having a bit of trouble getting the train conductor to the right stations then avocados can help you out there as well, if you know what I mean.

So to finish up our advocating of avocados, we’ll leave you with this: rise up to the gastronomic challenge and embrace the luscious green goods.

AGAINST: Ben Volchok

Alright you avocadocore losers, listen up. No, up higher. Yeah, okay, that’s about right. Yeah. Good. You listening? Good. ‘Cause right now, it’s time to really smash avocados.

Before you ask what qualifications I have to release this tirade, let me tell you. I once did a project in Year 7 Spanish class on avocados. So I think I have enough credentials, thank you very much.

Also, I own an avocado tree. That’s right. I have a tall, leafy

avocado tree in my backyard. It doesn’t produce fruit any more, thank god, but it’s there. One year it spawned hundreds of

avocados, then never again. What an unreliable organism. Doesn’t even bear scrutiny. Or fruit. That’s strike one.

PLUS DID YOU KNOW AVOCADOS ARE HARMFUL TO

ANIMALS? YOU FUCKERS. So yeah, go on, eat your wrinkly green alien orb-sacs while all the animals die. What? Yes I eat meat. Hypocrisy? Not at all. Shut up. The animals don’t have any reason to die for you to eat avocados but they do have to die for me to eat animals. That’s only fair. No you’re killing the animals unnecessarily. Monsters. That’s strike two.

Oh yeah. Don’t even mention guacamole. If you like having a mouthful of shitty bean stew every time you want dip, then that’s fine, go ahead. But I don’t, so I won’t. It’s like reconstructed Exorcist spew. Stew & Spew. Worst eatery ever. Strike three.

That’s basically it. Three strikes. Avocados are out. But let’s have some more strikes, just in case.

Toast. Why ruin toast? What’s wrong with butter? What’s wrong with jam? Hell, what’s wrong with eggs? This isn’t progress. This isn’t “healthy eating”. It’s just needless petulancy and contrarianism. It doesn’t even stay on the bread. Just slides off like the slug that it secretly is. Strike four.

You’ve probably already heard how your obsession with this slimy abomination is causing a countrywide avocado shortage, which, to be honest, is really just helping the other side. Us. The Good Side. The Side Free Of Avocados. This Is Sounding Like A Cult Now. But it’s you who’s the cult. Manipulating people into thinking this horror of a fruit is somehow beneficial to your diets. Sacrificing animals. Yeah. Cults. Strike five.

That’s five strikes. If you were playing baseball you’d be arrested for too many strikes. That’s how baseball works, I’m assuming. I don’t know, I didn’t do a high school project on baseball.

Whatever. I don’t care. Keep eating your favourite healthy fruit into extinction. Maybe then my avocado tree will be worth something. I love you, avocado tree.