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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Entertainment
Katherine Heslop

Love Your Garden's Alan Titchmarsh blasts smashed avocado on toast habit

TV gardening expert Alan Titchmarsh has labelled avocados a "no-no" and blasted the habit of the eating the millennial favourite on toast.

The 72-year-old presenter said the practise of growing the green fruit is damaging the environment, The Mail reports.

The Love Your Garden host said: "They chop down rainforests to plant avocado trees which need litres and litres of water to grow, and then they're shipped across the ocean.

"They're a no-no for me when I think about what it's taken to get that smashed avocado on to a piece of toast.

"I'm not that wild about the flavour anyway."

Alan Titchmarsh has concerns about the carbon footprints of avocados (Getty Images)

The majority of the avocados are produced in Central and South America, thousands of miles away.

The green-fingered guru has previously said he refuses to eat avocados because of their carbon footprint, and prefers Shreddies.

Writing in Gardeners' World magazine, Alan said he could not bear the idea of “forcing” down the “insipid” fruit first thing in the morning.

“It seems there is a great movement towards smashed avocado on sourdough bread. I can’t think of anything more insipid to force down my neck at the crack of dawn,” he wrote.

“I cannot reconcile myself to eating avocados and contributing to the enormous carbon footprint involved in shipping them across the ocean to my breakfast table, not to mention the wholesale destruction of the rainforest to create such plantations," he went on.

Speaking in December last year to The Mirror, Alan said he had no plans to slow down his career.

“My family keeps saying to me, ‘You shouldn’t be working as hard as you do’,” he says.

Alan Titchmarsh has no plans to slow down his career (ITV)

“So I’ve told them I’ll try to slow down. But the problem is I love what I do. I must try to get the balance better, but I love it.

“I’m not knackered of an evening either. I used to get more shattered when I was doing the chat show in the afternoon, and that was 10 years ago now.

He said his wife Alison is anxious that he doesn't overdo it, "but she's very understanding too."

Alan credits a lifetime of gardening with keeping him in good shape, bar some knee surgery a few years ago.

“I would say I’m pretty fit for my age, I can still run for a bus or a train, and I often do,” he says.

“The only concession I make on Love Your Garden, is if there’s a massive tree to plant. Then I get someone else to dig the hole.”

Asked if he has ever thought about retirement, he responded: “Never. Why would I retire and have to find something to interest me and fill the day? I’ve got a sense of purpose and reason to get up in the morning, that’s the greatest gift of all.

“But I do consider myself very lucky to still be on the screen at my age.”

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