Avocados have become one of the world's most popular foods in the past two decades. Americans these days eat 9 pounds of avocados annually and that’s a huge leap compared to 2001, when the average American only ate 1 pound a year. As domestic consumption and global interest have soared, so have production and prices. Yet as prices have reached to all-time-highs, demand has not stopped. Whether it’s avocado toast or guacamole in a Chipotle bowl, consumers continue to pay the premium for this fruit in the name of taste and nutrition. These twenty years of appreciation have turned avocados into a multi-billion-dollar industry where farmers nickname the fruit “green gold”. The avocado industry is so lucrative that it’s become a target for organized crime, leading people to label avocados as modern day blood diamonds. In this episode, we’ll cover the business of avocados, the major players, and how this simple fruit is at the heart of the political and economic relationship between th