Avocado-related injuries are on the up, so here's how to cut one safely
Avocados are harmless little fellas, right? Full of good, mono-unsaturated fats, right?
They may be good on the nutrition front, but there’s a danger lurking within our favourite brunch food.
And that’s when we’re cutting them, as foodies are being sent to A&E by the truckload for stabbing themselves in the hand in an attempt to do it. Probably due to their slippery nature, or perhaps because of our knives bouncing off the big, clumsy stone set in the middle.
Either way, the British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons thinks there safety warnings should be placed on them as “there is minimal understanding of how to handle them”.
“Perhaps we could have a cartoon picture of an avocado with a knife, and a big red cross going through it,” Simon Eccles, the honorary secretary of Bapras, told The Times.
In which case – without ditching one of our favourite foods – how can we peel, slice and eat them without damaging ourselves?
According to a YouTube video by Jamie Oliver, we should be using a particular method.
“The biggest and most common reason for a cut across the palm of the hand is avocados, so you might as well know how to do it properly, safely and quickly” he says in the clip.
“Get your avocado, [and] you want to go straight smack back in the middle – get a sharp knife and carefully, slowly and smoothly cut through and find the stone in the middle. Then move it out and rock it around – never applying too much pressure.”
Once he’s cut around the whole edge of the avocado up to the stone, he twists the two halves in opposite directions.
He then explains that the most crucial moment to avoid cutting ourselves is when we’re removing the stone, which he says we should do by resting the avocado on the table stone up, and hitting it gently with the knife edge so that it becomes lodged in the stone without going anywhere near your knifeless hand.
You can then pick it out with the knife and dispose of it safely.
He also explains that using a blunt knife is even more dangerous than a sharp one, as with blunt ones you really push at it before it goes off in the wrong direction after failing to cut.
And after you’ve got the stone out of the way, you can ditch the knife – and the danger – altogether, and remove the avocado’s flesh from the skin using a spoon.
Most importantly, don’t ever hold the avocado in your palm, and stab at it with the knife in your other – your breakfast will only end in tears.
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