Does Tesco’s new ‘avocado spread’ live up to the hype?

Last week, Tesco announced the launch of its new “avocado spread” – and the people of Britain rejoiced.

Despite the jubilation, though, it’s actually just glorified margarine that’s 30p more expensive than a twice-as-large tub of Tesco’s own sunflower spread, and contains 14g more fat than its Butter Me Up spread.

However, that’s still a small price to pay for an unstoned, ready-peeled, sort-of-version of the nation’s favourite health food. Isn’t it? I mean, I’m sure they wouldn’t charge that much for an anaemic spread. But just to be sure, we decided to test the new wonderfood against, you know, actual avocado.

Avocado salad

For something quite a bit fattier and quite a lot more expensive than a butter substitute, I couldn’t ignore the fact that avocado spread seems to be no different to your run-of-the-mill butter substitute.

At least that’s how it looked as I tossed it with some light leaves in an attempt to make a healthy green salad.

Did it compare to an actual avocado? No. Fresh avocado works much better in a salad – this was more like putting margarine in a salad.

Poached eggs and smashed avo on toast

As I slathered the avocado spread on some rustic seeded bread, two thoughts came to mind:

1. It didn’t require anywhere near as much preparation time as it would to pit and smash a regular avocado.
2. I probably didn’t need as big a quantity as I would with a regular avocado.

I’m going to be honest, this made me feel a bit ill – and normal avocado doesn’t tend to do that.

Did it compare to actual avocado? No. It tastes and looks like margarine.

Superfood smoothie

One of the major fallbacks of the avocado spread is that it isn’t green, which makes its inclusion in a green superfood smoothie quite problematic.

They put butter in bulletproof coffee and call it a health food, though, so nothing’s impossible.

Did it compare to actual avocado? Not really. It tasted like I’d mixed my drink with margarine.

Guacamole

Avocado is the key ingredient in guacamole, so I was confused that the guac I made didn’t look like any I’d ever had before.

It was almost like the spread itself only contains 24 per cent actual avocado.

Did it compare to actual avocado? No. Guacamole is a classically vibrant Mexican dish, but what I ended up with looked more like a coarse paste of chopped tomato, coriander and margarine.

On its own

Scooping avocado straight out of its skin and wolfing it down, straight from the spoon, is a deliciously guilty pleasure.

No such joy here, though – spooning the spread straight out of the tub just made me have a bit of a stomach ache.

Did it compare to actual avocado? It was actually more like eating flavourless margarine.

At least it contains Omega 3 though.