Baked Avocado-Egg Bowl

This recipe and photo were created by contributor Aylin Erman of Glow Kitchen. Learn more about Aylin and this recipe by checking out her accompanying post.

I never fathomed baking an avocado — the thought of it actually puts me off. But after seeing the avocado-egg image appearing on my favorite food blogs, I decided to try it out for myself (with a bit of a twist). This recipe is super easy and quite delicious. It includes two healthy fats: avocado and egg yolk. With some sheep‘s milk feta cheese and a dash of spice, it goes without saying that I was pleasantly surprised!

Recipe: Baked Avocado-Egg Bowl

Serves 2

 

What You‘ll Need:

1 avocado
2 eggs
2 ounces feta cheese
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
Dash of salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes

 

What To Do:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Slice the avocado lengthwise, twist the two sides, and pull apart. Remove the pit.
3. Make the hole in the middle of each half of the fruit a bit bigger by scraping out some of the meat with a spoon. (This is so that the hole can accommodate the whole eggs!)
4. Lay the avocado halves skin-side down in a baking dish.
5. Carefully crack one egg in each avocado half‘s core.
6. Season with salt and pepper, and drop pieces of the feta cheese on top of the egg.
7. Place the baking dish in the oven for 15 minutes, or until the egg is cooked to your liking.
8. Season with the red pepper flakes and serve with chopped parsley. 

Have you tried the famous baked-egg-in-an-avocado trick? What‘s your favorite variation? Share with us in the comments below! 

Thank Ancient Humans for That Fastball

Humans may not run faster than a cheetah or swim better than a shark, but they out-throw other species, experts say. And the reasons for that may lie far back in evolution.

People‘s ability to throw balls and other objects fast and accurately is a trait that developed nearly 2 million years ago to help our now-extinct ancestors hunt with rocks and sharpened wooden spears, new research suggests.

 

"We think that throwing was probably most important early on in terms of hunting behavior, enabling our ancestors to effectively and safely kill big game," study lead author Neil Roach, of George Washington University, said in a university news release. "Eating more calorie-rich meat and fat would have allowed our ancestors to grow larger brains and bodies and expand into new regions of the world -- all of which helped make us who we are today."

 

Superior throwing skills are unique to humans, the researchers noted, and even our chimpanzee cousins can‘t come close to matching us.

 

"Chimpanzees are incredibly strong and athletic, yet adult male chimps can only throw about 20 miles per hour -- one-third the speed of a 12-year-old little league pitcher," Roach said.

 

He and his colleagues used a 3-D camera system to record the throwing motions of collegiate baseball players. They found that the shoulder acts much like a slingshot during a throw, storing and releasing large amounts of energy.

 

"When humans throw, we first rotate our arms backwards away from the target. It is during this ‘arm-cocking‘ phase that humans stretch the tendons and ligaments crossing their shoulder and store elastic energy," Roach explained. "When this energy is released, it accelerates the arm forward, generating the fastest motion the human body produces, resulting in a very fast throw."

 

The researchers also found that certain structural features in the torso, shoulder and arm make this energy storage possible.

The findings, to be published July 27 in the journalNature, may have important implications for athletes. For example, baseball pitchers throw much more often than our ancient ancestors did.

 

"At the end of the day, despite the fact that we evolved to throw, when we overuse this ability it can end up injuring us," said Roach, a postdoctoral scientist in the university‘s Center for the Advanced Study of Hominid Paleobiology.

 

More information

The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons discusses throwing-related elbow injuries in children.