It’s smart to know when avocados are safe to eat, since they can be expensive. In other words, you might be tossing one, thinking it’s bad, when you actually don’t need to. Here are the 5 ways you can know if your avocado is still usable (courtesy of www.healthline.com).

 

 

But first, a little background information: An avocado doesn’t start to ripen until picked from the tree, but the process happens rather quickly afterward. Once ripe, you have a narrow window of time – generally only a few days – before the fruit starts to spoil. 

So to determine when an avocado is rotten and no longer good to eat, here’s what to look for:

Overly soft and dented skin. When checking for ripeness, use the palm of your hand to gently squeeze the avocado. Don’t press the fruit with your fingers, as this may bruise the flesh. If the avocado is very firm and doesn’t give at all, it’s under-ripe. If it gives slightly, it’s likely ripe and ready to eat. However, if squeezing leaves a small indentation, it may be too ripe for slicing and will work better mashed.

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My 9-year-old daughter baked 300 Easter cookies for the homeless — the next morning, a stranger showed up at our door with a briefcase full of cash. My daughter, Ashley, has always had a heart too big for her chest. Since my wife died, we’ve barely been making ends meet. We spent everything we had trying to save her from cancer. But when Easter came this year, Ashley told me she’d been saving up her own money to buy ingredients. “For the homeless,” she said. Her mom used to be one of them. She was thrown out by her parents when they found out she was pregnant with Ashley. When I met her, she had nothing — but she had the brightest smile and the sharpest mind I had ever seen. I fell in love with her. I took her and Ashley in. And from that moment on, Ashley became my daughter in every way that matters. So when Ashley said she wanted to help people like her mom once was… I didn’t stop her. For three nights straight, after school and homework, she baked. Her little hands worked nonstop. She found her mom’s old cookie recipe. She rolled every piece of dough herself. She decorated every cookie. She made three hundred cookies. On Easter, she handed them out one by one. She looked people in the eyes. She wished them a Happy Easter. Some of them smiled. Some of them cried. I stood there thinking it was the proudest moment of my life. I thought that was the end of it. The next morning, I was washing a mountain of dishes when the doorbell rang. I opened the door. An older man stood there in a worn-out suit, holding a scratched aluminum briefcase. His eyes were locked on Ashley. Before I could ask anything, he set the case down and opened it. I froze. Stacks of hundred-dollar bills — more money than I had ever seen in my life. “I saw what your daughter did yesterday,” he said, his voice shaking. “I want to give all of this to her.” My heart skipped. Then he added: “But you have to agree to ONE CONDITION.” My chest tightened. “What condition?” I asked. He stepped closer. He lowered his voice. And what he asked for in return made my blood run cold.