Stop Your Avocados From Browning. This Farmer Shares Trick To Keeping Your Avocados That Perfect Green Color

Jan 16, 2019 by apost team

America seems to have a new favorite fruit, leaving other fruits green with envy. It’s the avocado, and it’s packed with nutrients and healthy fats.

The only complaint and holdup from this superfood completing total world domination? It’s shelf life isn’t so fabulous. Is there a trick to extending the life of an avocado? Turns out there is, and it’s so simple.

The Healthy Avocado Is On It’s Way Up In The World

As a low-carb fruit with plenty of healthy fats for energy and nutrients for good health, the popularity of avocado as both a snack in of itself and as an ingredient in many recipes isn’t so surprising.

Nutrition expert Laura Flores explained to Live Science that an avocado’s fat content is around three-fourths alpha-linolenic acid, which is a healthy omega 3 fatty acid. These are the types of fats that actually help to lower cholesterol and maintain heart health. So, don’t discard the avocado just because you hear that it has a high-fat content.

In comparison to other fruits, avocado is also low on the glycemic index and high in energy-producing proteins.

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Other key nutritional benefits come from the vitamins and minerals in the avocado, which include:

  • Vitamin K
  • Vitamin B 1,2,3,5,and 6.
  • Vitamin E
  • Vitamin C
  • Folate
  • Potassium
  • Copper
  • Iron
  • Zinc
  • Phosphorus
  • Manganese
  • Magnesium

Aside from being a superfood for nutrition, the creamy and rich avocado is actually quite tasty, too. While that’s a matter of personal opinion, popular opinion around the avocado’s taste is overwhelmingly positive.

From Panera and Subway to Burger King, most restaurants that include an avocado menu item see sales rise. In fact, Avocaderia is a restaurant with a menu completely comprised of avocado-based options. According to this Washington Post article, Hass avocado sales in the U.S. quadrupled from 2005 to 2015 to a record 1.9 billion pounds.

If not for the poor shelf life, avocado might just be a perfect food, right? Let’s see what you can do about that.

Quick And Easy Trick To Prolonging The Life Of Your Avocados

Underripe can be too hard to eat. Buy it overly ripe, and it’s not long before the avocado is brown and doesn’t taste that great. Even cutting it at the perfect ripeness is problematic if you aren’t going to eat it all in one sitting. Within 24 hours, it’s brown even in the fridge.

You’ve tried the lemon juice trick. You’ve wrapped it up in plastic wrap. Nothing seems to save the day, though.

Considering avocados are typically pricey in most areas, you certainly don’t want any to go to waste, right? The ingenious folks over at Chowhound have saved the day for the avocado in their YouTube video on how to prevent it from browning.

  1. Pick just the right avocado based on colour and firmness.

  2. Preserve any unused portion of your avocado by placing it in an enclosed container with a large slab of cut red onion. Make sure the pit-side is up and the onion is on touching the skin of the avocado. Place the container in the fridge for storage.

How does the onion trick work? Onions, particularly red onions, emit high levels of sulfur gases. Those gases help halt the oxidation process that’s responsible for browning fleshy fruits. Now, you can have your avocado and eat it, too.

Do you love avocados, but you’ve found it frustrating to pay good money for something that spoils so quickly? Have you tried the red onion trick? Do you know any other tricks to prolong the shelf life of an avocado?

Be sure to leave us a comment with your thoughts, and don’t forget to pass this trick along to your fellow avocado lovers.