Yeah, you read that correctly, the ripening process of an avocado is special. Not all avocados ripe the same way, but the ‘Hass’ avocado does. For example, a strawberry doesn’t ripe after you’ve bought it, but the ripening process of an avocado can be stimulated by yourself! What does the ripening process look like, and how do you stimulate it? I researched it, want to read along?
The avocado is a real popular, tropical winner. There is no fruit which gets popular as fast as the avocado! The avocado has a smooth, rough or lumpy skin. The Pulp of the avocado is greenish, white or yellow with a creamy crème-like structure. The taste is soft and it only contains good fats.
The ripening process of an avocado
The ripening process of an avocado is a complex combination of circumstances, and this starts with the harvesting companies.
An avocado grows from an avocado tree, which can grow to 20 meters high. The avocado tree originates from Puebla and Mexico, and some time later from Central and South America as well. The reason that this tree can only grow in warm climates, is because the tree doesn’t like cold temperatures. The tree provides it’s fruits for the first time after 4 or 5 years. Avocados start to ripe after they are harvested. The Hass avocado goes through the whole ripening process, but the other avocados don’t. They go through the normal process: they wait. The ready-to-eat avocados go through another different process, just for the customers. This way, they don’t have to wait.
The ready-to-eat avocado that BE Fresh imports are harvested later than usual. This way, the fruit makes more natural nutrients, which is good for the taste. We do daily samples and after that, we criticize the ripening process. The temperature gets lowered gradually, so the durability increases.
How do you quickly ripe an avocado?
Imagine you are at home, you have some avocados and you would love to make guacamole dip, but the avocado is as hard as a rock! Bummer! Though, you could quickly ripe the avocado, I have some tips for you:
- An avocado is just like a banana, tomato or apple. It contains the chemical ‘ethene’. This hormone causes faster ripening because of the surrounding vegetables and fruits.
- Another way to speed up the ripening is to wrap it in aluminium foil. If you do this, the avocado is sealed and air won’t go in or out. The ethene doesn’t escape the avocado this way. You kind of gas the avocado to let it ripe it if you think about it!
- One extra tip. You could put the aluminium-foiled avocado in the oven and check if it is soft enough after 8 minutes.
The day after...
The day after you ate half of the tasty and ripe avocado, you would like to eat the rest too right? But how long can you keep the avocado? The fruit gets brown easily, but there is a trick to fight this.
First of all, it depends on how ripe the avocado was when you bought it. The best thing you can do is to fill a plastic tray with water and put the cut avocado in the water, with the seed facing downwards. Put the lid on and put it in the fridge. After 24 hours, it should be as good as new.
Lovely recipes with avocado:
Did you know...
- That because of the ribbed skin of the avocado, it is often called alligator pear or crocodile pear?
- That compared to other fruits, the avocado contains a lot more protein? There is 1 gram of protein in a pear, and 6 gram in an avocado.
- That an avocado tree needs 2000 hours of sunshine per year?
Feel free to contact me to talk about this topica at
Sources:
Perfecthealth.nl
Naturespride.eu
Foodiesmagazine.nl
Loveandlemons.com