Introduction:

Most people enjoy the "Hass" variety of avocado, common in your favorite grocery store. Pick a dark color avocado and gently squeeze with your fingers. The perfect, ready to eat avocado will have a gradual, easy give when gently squeezed between your thumb and forefinger. Avoid avocados that appear wrinkled at the stem end or feel squishy when squeezed as they are over ripe.

Want to buy avocados to enjoy several days from now ?  For later consumption, look for very hard fruit.  The greener, the better.  Make sure to choose avocados with the tip of the stem still attached, the "button".

What to do with it…

If the avocado is ripe, just eat it! Fresh, ripe avocado doesn't store well. Stir in a few tblsp lemon juice into your left over guac will help. Store green hard avocados in the refrigerator no more than 10 days as longer will cause them to cut with black instead of that beautiful guac-green inside... No...you can't freeze them. Once brought to room temperature, avocados ripen in 3-5 days.

Here is a trick to speed ripen a green avocado. Use the tip of your thumb to pop the stem "button" off the avocado. This will cause the green avocado to ripen twice as fast at room temperature ! - In a rush to ripen some guac-grenages ? Just put them in a paper bag. That’s right. Avocados purchased at retail are traditionally treated with ethelyene gas to encourage ripening. By putting your avocado in a paper bag, you are capturing the gas emitting from the avocados and in turn it continues to increase the ripening rate. This process can be further accelerated for several avocados at once by placing a few green, unripe bananas, in the same bag. Bananas, especially very green ones, also emit the same ethelyene gas and the process is harmless to the bananas.

Why it is good for you…

Just 1/3 of a medium avocado  has 80 calories and contributes  nearly 20 vitamins and minerals. 

It's a great nutrient-dense food choice.

The avocado is virtually the only fruit that contains heart- healthy monounsaturated fat. 

Good fat!  California Avocados  are naturally sodium, sugar and cholesterol-free.

Vitamins it has…

Cool Idea & Recipes

All avo food ideas must start with the cutting in  half, pit removal and final cuts (if any) and  peeling for finer slicing and decoration use. Cut the avocado in half by gently sinking the knife edge into the top of the avocado straight down to the pit, then slowly roll the knife all the way  around the pit in a straight line, ending up at  your beginning cut mark.  Twist the halves until they separate.

Easily remove the pit. Hold a heavy knife 3" over the center of the pit and make a firm, down hacking motion. Enough to slightly bury the knife edge into the pit. Just deep enough to let you just twist the knife and pit easily out.

Did you know it ?

The avocado tree is actually a plant.

Avocados are actuallly the fruit of the plant.

So botanically speaking, an avocado is actually a large berry containing a single large seed.

Got it?

True or False ?

The pit keeps the avocado from turning brown.

Answer: Kindasortanotreally…..

Science demonstrates that avocados have an enzyme called polyphenol oxidase (PPO), which causes the fruit to brown when it comes in contact with oxygen. The pit however, only protects the avocado/guacamole portion that the pit makes contact with. The pit only shields that little portion of the dip from the oxygen in the air.