So, somehow, I got snookered into doing a Whole 30. If you’re not familiar with what that is, it’s a 30 day clean-eating program during which you cannot have any: processed foods, dairy, sugar (including any of its natural derivatives like honey and agave), grains, legumes, or corn.

Which pretty much leaves eggs, meat, fruit, salad, avocados, and sweet potatoes. For life. Or 30 days. So, basically the same thing.

Ha!

No, but really, the way it went down was that I saw my friend, Hannah, post about starting a Whole 30 at about 10 PM the night before it started, and I was like, “So, you’re doing this, huh?” And she was all: “Yup. You in?” I was like: “Um. Well, I’m totally unprepared.” And she said: “Us too.” And so I said, “Okay, sure. Why not?”

So, basically, you shouldn’t ask me to jump off a cliff. Because apparently, I’d do it. Especially, if you tell me you’re doing it too and totally unprepared for any extenuating circumstances.

Solidarity.

ANYhoo…the point of all that is that I’ve been eating a lot of avocados. (Never let it be said that there is not a thin–and I do mean thiiiiin–thread between my vague, random ramblings).

So, Monday, when I started the aforementioned Whole 30, I found myself in the Walmart produce section, coincidentally bumping into my friend, Liz, who is doing it too and was also there stocking up on green stuff. And as we stood there staring at the heaps of bright green, rock hard avocados, I had a flash of brilliance!

Okay, fine. I remembered someone else’s flash of brilliance.

Because, you see, just a few weeks before, Shaun’s Great-Aunt Tonya (who is, like, the coolest aunt ever) had heard me complaining about how my avocados hadn’t ripened up in time for the twins’ birthday party, and she said, “If you’ve got 24 hours, you can have ripe avocados.”

bananaswatermark

Do what?? I think my jaw literally dropped open when she imparted the epic wisdom that, if you put an unripe avocado in a bag with a ripe banana, it will ripen within 24 hours.

Of course, I had to put this fascinating little tidbit to the test.

And, OF COURSE, I shared my tip with Liz. So, we both scooped up big bags of avocados and went on our merry ways. (Mine was less merry when a certain toddler decided to melt down over not being allowed to buy drinking yogurt, but let’s not talk about that).

When I got home, I hunted around for a paper bag, but we’re environmental heathens, and all I could find were plastic ones. banana 3 I figured they would do in a pinch.

Turns out, I was right.

I popped 3 unripe avocados in a plastic Walmart bag with one banana, then that inside another bag, just for good measure.

That was Monday afternoon.

When I took them out Tuesday evening, this is what I had.

banana1

I’m guessing you can tell which avocado sat in the sunlight by the window for 24 hours and which one was imprisoned with a banana for the same amount of time?

Pretty cool, huh?

P.S. I bought unripe avocados today, even though they had ripe ones, just so I could do this little magic trick again. Because I’m a nerd like that.

Did you already know about this? Does it work for anything else? I tried to find out from my good friend, Google, but the results were inconclusive.

 

5 Comments

  1. I put the few plums from our tree (not a good fruit year!) on the kitchen window sill where the banana tree is and the plums ripened.

  2. All fruits give off ethene while ripening, so imprison any fruit at all (even by itself) and it will ripen faster than out in the open. It will also over-ripen faster, so leaving almost-too-ripe fruit out by themselves will have them last a few days longer than sitting in the ethene swamp that is the fruit bowl. Bananas simply give off a larger quantity of ethene than most fruits and so, are particularly effective ripeners.

  3. Had no idea!! I’m all over this one for sure!! I’m interested to hear about your whole 30. I’ve seen it all over but I’m scared to try & fail, haha!

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