Avocados are now a staple item in the fruit bowl for many UK households, alongside your run-of-the-mill apples, pears and oranges.
But while the popular fruit makes for a tasty snack, if an avocado is unripe when you buy it then you’ll have to wait around five days before you can actually eat it. Unripe avocados typically take four to five days to ripen, although this depends on how firm it is when you buy it. If the fruit feels hard and won’t yield to gentle pressure, then it’s a sign it’s not ready to eat yet, and if you cut it open, the flesh will be tough and difficult to mash.
You can usually tell when an avocado is ready to eat by its colour, as it will be almost black with just a hint of green, and should yield to pressure.
Avocados will ripen naturally when left to sit out at room temperature, out of direct sunlight, over several days, but this can be frustrating if you want to eat it sooner.
Luckily, there is an easy way to bypass this waiting process if you’re impatient and want to tuck into your avocado without waiting up to five days.
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According to experts, it’s possible to speed up the ripening process by placing your avocado inside a brown paper bag and a piece of fruit and leaving it overnight.
Apples, bananas, and kiwis are considered the best fruits for the job as they all release ethylene gas, a natural hormone that fruits produce to ripen. The gas causes fruits to soften and change colour, causing the starches to break down and form sugars, making the flesh soft and sweet.
The idea is that the brown paper bag traps the ethylene gas released by the fruit in a small, concentrated space, effectively helping to speed up the ripening process.
Food company McCormick explains: “You can speed up the avocado-ripening process with a piece of fruit. Add an avocado, along with an apple, a banana or a kiwi to a brown paper bag and fold to seal. These fruits release ethylene gas, a plant hormone that aids ripening.
The closed paper bag traps the gas inside so the process can work faster. If you don’t have any extra apples, bananas or kiwi in the kitchen, you can also place an avocado in a paper bag. This will trap the ethylene gas that the avocado’s producing, but it won’t ripen quite as fast.”
It’s argued that this enhanced ripening process, while effective, can result in the flavour of the avocado to be less pronounced, so you may notice the texture and taste won’t be quite as rich or creamy as it would be if the fruit is left to ripen naturally. But the option you choose depends on how long you’re willing to wait to eat the fruit.