Guacamole makers sued for using too little avocado

A Californian woman is taking on the giant food companies that, she says, are pushing "fake guacamole" to a public increasingly hooked on Mexico's avocado-based staple.

Brenda Lifsey was outraged to read in the fine print that a guacamole dip contained so little real avocado that its green colouring had to be made up from blue and yellow food dyes. She is suing its makers, Kraft Foods, and her lawyer says other manufacturers could be next.

"I found there was almost no avocado in it," she said. Most of the paste, she claimed, was made from hydrogenated soya bean, coconut oils, corn syrup, whey and food starch, with 2 per cent avocado.

The snack, which was first eaten by the Aztecs, has been soaring in popularity in the US, and there are growing calls for federal regulators to step in.