Big talk about the big game – Super Bowl XLVIII Feb. 2 at MetLife Stadium in Rutherford, N.J. – is already kindling much talk about green – lots of green – not money, but avocados.

The Hass Avocado Board (HAB) predicts Super Bowl fans will consume 208 million avocados during the big game – that’s 104 million pounds of the green, climacteric fruit. If the Board is spot on, this would be a 32 percent increase in avocado consumption over last year’s Super Bowl avocado eats.

HAB’s prediction was made in Irvine, Calif.; not Las Vegas.

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The avocados – 208 million pounds of them – would fill a football field from one end zone to the other, and tower above the top of the goal posts.

“Avocados and the Big Game go hand in hand,” said Emiliano Escobedo, executive director of the Hass Avocado Board.

“This year, the Big Apple will meet the Big Avocado, as once again, more and more Americans will enjoy avocados during the game.”

Last year, football fans across the country consumed an estimated 79 million pounds, or 158 million Hass avocados, during Super Bowl gatherings.

Almost a quarter of all the avocados consumed during this year’s Super Bowl will be California grown, plus 19 percent from other western states. More than 40 percent of the green fruit will have roots in the West.

According to the Board, Americans last year ate a heaping helping of avocados – topping the scales at nearing nearly 1.7 billion pounds of the cholesterol-free fruit which also contains natural good fats.

About 98 percent of U.S.-sold avocados are the Hass variety.

The Hass Avocado Board is an agriculture promotion group created in 2002 to promote Hass avocado consumption in the U.S.

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