HouseHold Tip! If you want an avacado to NEVER ripen, Vacuum Seal it!

[Paul F.]

So, a few weeks ago I started playing with my "new to me" vacuum sealer...

http://forums.macresource.com/read.php?1...sg-1798418

Well... a week or so later, I bought an avacado at Walmart. Hey, I was THERE... I needed a couple things, and picked up an avacado.
Well, I was impatient, and ate half of the avacado when I made a taco-like meal (not gonna get into the semantics of my assembly...). The other half, still as hard as an apple (not very tasty yet...), I decided "Hey.. why not try vacuum sealing it, to keep it from turning brown while it ripens???".
So I did.
I put it on a shelf and eventually stacked some boxes of crackers in front of it.


Fast forward almost FOUR WEEKS...
I move the boxes of crackers and "OH, C^@&! There's that avacado!".
But guess what? Not only is it NOT BROWN.... (well, a little tiny fringe of the edge is), but it's also JUST AS HARD and UNRIPE as it was when I vac-sealed it!

Don't know if it was just a defective avacado, or if vacuum sealing it prevents ripening complely...

Maybe I'll try vacuum sealing a green banana, and seeing how it does vs the rest of the bunch? Or, maybe I'm just too lazy for that...

[Fritz]

1st, how do you get a cado that is half ripe?
I've often put a cado that wasn't as ripe as I thought in a sealed (not vacuum sealed) container on the counter for a day or 2 and it has ripened nicely. Though that certainly depends on the weather.
In summer it would be wearing a fur coat in a day, but this time of year, it works pretty well.
YMMD

[Paul F.]

Sorry.. wasn't clear... it was HALF of an UNRIPE avacado. I ate the other other in its unripened state :-)

[Fritz]

Paul F. wrote:
Sorry.. wasn't clear... it was HALF of an UNRIPE avacado. I ate the other other in its unripened state :-)

eeeewwwww!!!!!

[Paul F.]

Fritz wrote:
[quote=Paul F.]
Sorry.. wasn't clear... it was HALF of an UNRIPE avacado. I ate the other other in its unripened state :-)

eeeewwwww!!!!!
Yeah.. why do you think I tossed the other half in the vacuum bag to try to ripen it without it turning nasty!

I succeeded in it not turning nasty, but it also didn't ripen AT ALL!

[rgG]

I have had some avocados that seemed to go straight from unripe to rotten and never get just right in between. They were rotten, but still sort of hard. Go figure.

An avocado will ripen nice and slow, usually, if you just pop it in the fridge. They keep a long time that way.
I usually let mine sit out till they are almost ripe, then pop them in the fridge. That way they don't get rotten on me or overly mushy.

[davester]

What rgG said. Also, the best way to ripen avocados quickly is to pop them in a bag so that they retain ethylene gas that they emit. I would think that vacuum sealing should make them ripen faster. Note that turning brown where cut has nothing to do with ripening...it occurs due to direct contact of the flesh with oxygen. I'm guessing that Paul's avocado may have been picked too early and that it may make the transition straight from unripe to rotten. Time will tell.

[Racer X]

the value of the half an avacado was less than the vacuum bag, dude.

[Paul F.]

Racer X wrote:
the value of the half an avacado was less than the vacuum bag, dude.

It wasn't about the avacado... it was about KNOWING...

[mrbigstuff]

it's a Walmartocado! Back off!