How to Avoid “Avocado Hand”

http://gph.is/2aoTxs4

I’d like to think we’re ahead of the news curve, at least on botanical and home economics stories, but sometimes we miss something. I did not know there was such a thing as “avocado hand.”

Living in LA’s Silver Lake district we’ve witnessed, first hand, the nativity of the avocado toast phenomenon but we didn’t know about the bloody consequences. Apparently, knife skill challenged folks are cradling avocados in their hands and stabbing the knife into the pit to remove it. Meryl Streep fell victim to avocado hand back in 2012, though I’m less surprised by her injury than by the fact that she doesn’t have “people” to make avocado toast for her.

Root Simple reader Randi let me know that there’s a song by Swedish singer Jens Lekman about avocado hand:

I was slicing up an avocado
When you came up behind me
With your silent brand-new sneakers
Your reflection I did not see
It was the hottest day in August
And we were heading for the sea
For a second my mind started drifting

You put your arms around me
You put your arms around me
You put your arms around

Blood spraying on the kitchen sink
“What’s this?” I have time to think
I see the tip of my index finger
My mind is slowly creating a link
From your mouth speaks your lovely voice
The softest words ever spoken
“What’s broken can always be fixed
What’s fixed will always be broken”

You put your arms around me
You put your arms around me
You put your arms around me
You put your arms around

I must have passed out on the porch
Dreamt I was carried in a kangaroo’s pouch
When I wake up, I’m in the waiting room
On a dirty hospital couch
My hand is wrapped in toilet paper
And my body’s wrapped in debris
You’re sitting next to me reading a paper
I put your arm around me

For the record, though taste arbiters have long since proclaimed “peak avocado toast,” I’m still a fan. But I suggest keeping your hand out of the path of the blade when rolling your own avocado toast. Note the annoying animated gif at the top of this post for the pit removal method that will keep you out of the emergency room.

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6 Comments

  1. No wonder people keep ruining their hand with knives used on an avocado. First rule of knives: never, ever stab anything you have in your hand since you could miss or hit a glancing blow. There, post that and people should be safe from themselves. How stupid are people?

    • Very true!

      This is part of the more general rule that, if you are moving anything sharp, make sure that your hand – or any other body part – is not in front of it, in case it suddenly goes further, faster or in a different direction from what you intended. As well as knives, this rule applies to power saws and axes.

      My area of stupidity is screwdrivers, which slip off screws and embed themselves in my hand. This is especially sneaky because no one usually considers screwdrivers to be sharp.

  2. Awesome. Thanks for the mention, guys! Personally I have more of an issue with carrots. Slippery buggers.

  3. Iv’e been using the GIF method for decades and got it off some PBS cooking show. And I’m sorry, but if you’re stupid enough to stab(!) something in your hand there will be consequences eventually.
    (My stupidity confession-I worked retail in a bakery and would cut the bagels in my hand towards my palm. 99.9% of the time it worked fine-the times it didn’t I just kept my hand cupped and the small cut wouldn’t even bleed until I opened it to put on a band-aid.)

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