It seems like these days avocados are everybody’s favorite food. And fair enough. Avocados have a long list of benefits. They contain huge amounts of Vitamins K, C, B and E. They are loaded with fiber and heart-healthy monounsaturated fatty acids. Eating avocados can significantly lower the cholesterol levels. And, finally, avocados are a weight loss friendly food.
So you should definitely include avocados in your diet. But when you go to the shop it is important to know how to choose a ripe avocado.
There are three main ways to do this:
But this method is the most unreliable one as there are many different varieties of avocados and each of them has it’s own color when ripe.
If you hold an avocado in the palm of your hand and gently press on it with your fingertips you will be able to feel how firm it is. A ripe avocado should very easily yield even to a minimal amount of pressure. So be careful not to squeeze too hard so as not to bruise the fruit. An under ripe avocado will feel very firm whereas an overripe one will feel mushy.
This is the most precise and fun method to check if an avocado is ripe. All you have to do is pull out the stem with your index finger and thumb and look at the color beneath it. Bear in mind that if you can’t remove the stem without cutting the avocado it means that the fruit is still unripe. You should have no problem plucking the stem out if the avocado is ripe.
If the avocado under the stem is green, then it is still under ripe.
