Avocados are a notoriously finicky fruit that can go bad rather quickly.
Avocados are great to enjoyed with various other foods for breakfast, lunch or dinner. But let’s face it, there’s nothing better than enjoying some avocado, eggs and toasted sourdough bread on the weekend.
The problem is that the creamy green fruit is prone to quickly turning brown and mushy. Whilst one popular social media hack suggests storing avocados in water to keep them fresh, but this method could actually make you ill.
Dunking avocados in water creates a moist environment that encourages bacterial growth, including Salmonella. Even if the water looks clean, any microbes on the avocado’s skin will thrive.
But don’t fret, there’s a safer way to prolong the life of your avocados, and it involves a citrus fruit. A member of the Homemaking Tips Facebook group has revealed that lemons are the secret to keeping avocados fresh for longer, reports the Express.
John Wheeler posted: “Y’all, I am shooketh! I read somewhere that storing avocados in the fridge with a lemon makes them last longer, so I decided to try it.
“The last purchase ended up in the crisper drawer of the fridge. Almost six weeks later, I see them when I’m making burritos and think, why not see.
“After just over five weeks, they were perfectly ripe and bright green inside still. I will never store them another way.”
The acids in lemons work wonders by lowering the pH of avocados, thus reducing enzymatic activity and preventing them from browning.
Chilling slows down the ripening process, so it’s best to pop a ripe or nearly ripe avocado in the fridge.
However, avocados should be left on the counter to ripen properly at room temperature before being tucked away in the fridge drawer with a lemon.
If you chill an unripe avocado, it will eventually ripen, but be warned — the texture and taste might not be up to scratch.
This follows as the number one rule when buying avocados is simple: never purchase ripe avocados, according to Vegan.com.
The site explained: “Regardless of which variety you choose, the one inviolable rule of purchasing avocados is to only buy them totally unripe. You want them greenish and rock hard. That enables you to eliminate the risk of bruising.”