[HN Gopher] Green gold: Avocado farming on the rise in Africa
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Green gold: Avocado farming on the rise in Africa
Author : dsnr
Score : 99 points
Date : 2021-05-02 17:00 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.dw.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.dw.com)
| surfer7837 wrote:
| I recommend Rotten on Netflix [1] that has an episode about
| Avocado farming. The whole series is super interesting anyway and
| explores modern day issues such as lack of water, climate change
| and globalisation.
|
| [1] https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/80146284
| sparrc wrote:
| Personally I was very unimpressed with this documentary,
| especially the episode on avocado farming actually. It felt
| like they were trying to create a story out of nothing.
|
| The fact is that crops take water to grow. All crops do.
| Avocados are on the higher side when looked at water used per
| pound (though not the highest), but they are still nowhere near
| the level of animal products. Avocados are also one of the most
| (if not the most) calorie-dense fruits, which means that their
| water per calorie is likely in line with most other fruit.
|
| What exactly was the point Rotten was trying to make? That
| avocados are popular so now they are being grown more? who
| cares? You could say the same thing about literally every other
| fruit and vegetable on the planet.
| lhorie wrote:
| Interestingly, I saw a video recently that argued that the
| majority of water consumption for animal products comes from
| green water (aka direct precipitation) and the majority of
| that water is released back to the ground in the form of
| urination, which makes it less taxing to aquifer systems than
| crops like avocados and almonds, which are extremely water
| intensive and primarily consume groundwater drawn from
| subterranean water systems by artificial irrigation systems.
| jacobolus wrote:
| If water used in agriculture - including water sucked out
| of aquifers from wells - were appropriately priced, (a)
| water-intensive crops would move to places where water was
| more abundant, and (b) ways would be found to reduce water
| use.
|
| Growing e.g. alfalfa, rice, cotton, or almonds in
| California (not to mention beef/dairy production) happens
| partly because water for agriculture is artificially cheap,
| not reflecting its true costs.
| ufo wrote:
| IIRC most of the water used to produce meat is used to
| produce the animal feed.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| Yes, and most animal feed is human inedible stuff like
| grass and corn stalks. The water used to produce these is
| rain water that would fall and drain or evaporate from
| there either way.
| cataphract wrote:
| I think you're referring to this one:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGG-A80Tl5g
|
| Youtube suggested it to me recently as well.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| Cowspiracy. Seaspiracy, now this? What am I supposed to eat!?!
| Hyperbole aside, buying food that is actually sustainable and
| has no ethical concerns seems very difficult.
| cigaser wrote:
| The only food with ethical concerns is human flesh. The rest
| is marketing.
| ganafagol wrote:
| Your personal ethics are at odds with those of most people
| I know.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| A lot of shrimp is shelled and packed by literal slaves.
| That seems ethically questionable.
| trav4225 wrote:
| I can almost guarantee you that recycling cadavers into
| protein shakes will be one of the "next big things"
| proposed. To save the planet, of course.
| ganafagol wrote:
| That's the spoiler of a 1973 movie about a green flavor
| food product.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| Why ruin the texture? Low and slow with some rosemary
| garlic and salt. Engineers that drink a lot of beer and
| live in cubicles are practically Kobe.
| hervature wrote:
| Go to your local farmer's market, buy what they have. It's
| not that hard.
| jwilber wrote:
| "It's not that hard."
|
| You hear that, single-mother-of-three? Stop eating
| unsustainably and just go pay a 20 percent markup for
| whatever food is available down at the local farmer's
| market. It's not that hard! Just make more money.
|
| What about those who find such markets price-prohibitive?
| Those who live in food deserts?
| megablast wrote:
| The big trick is not to get yourself in the situation of
| being a single mother with 3 kids for starters. Of course
| you can't do the best for your kids with 3 of them on
| your own.
| sethhochberg wrote:
| I'm not trying to downplay the difficulties of helping
| less privileged people eat well, but you should know many
| cities have programs that specifically make efforts to
| put farmers markets in food deserts, and often accept
| EBT/SNAP at above cash value (or with heavy rebates) - if
| these kind of programs don't exist where you are, perhaps
| consider petitioning whatever group runs your local
| farmers markets to see if they might be possible to
| introduce.
| ganafagol wrote:
| If those who can afford it would do it, like the well-off
| people frequenting hacker news, that would be a start.
| That would drive up demand, make it worth for more
| farmers to do this sustainably, eventually driving those
| costs down, and thus making it more affordable for lesser
| income people. And it's not black and white, in each
| iteration more people can afford it. Similar to electric
| cars.
|
| It's easy to armchair-philosophise those things away with
| "oh but poor people wont ever have the money, so screw
| it". With that attitude we'd never hav gotten electric
| cars. Or solar power.
| jwilber wrote:
| There's no armchair philosophy here, nor the defeated
| apathy you seem to be responding to.
|
| GP posted a ridiculous, condescending, one-sentence
| solution to the issue of sustainable eating. I used
| hyperbole to try and highlight how out of touch they are.
|
| The whole point is that the problem is, in fact, hard.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Bringing up impoverished people every time someone asks
| what one should be eating doesn't answer the question and
| it's exhausting to watch "Avocados are healthy and--"
| "Umm, try living in a food desert with three jobs!"
|
| Yes, it sucks for those people, but pointing out poverty
| doesn't silence the conversation about nutrition for the
| rest of us who can afford some cheap vegetables.
| jwilber wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| But when someone posts a one-sentence solution to a
| difficult problem, and frames it in the most
| condescending manner possible (eg "It's not hard."), it's
| difficult not to respond with a low-effort (and very
| real) counterexample.
|
| I'm curious what the "unsilenced" (???) conversation
| would continue to look like in your opinion- seems to me
| like the "not hard" comment of the original response
| implied not much conversation was left to be had.
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| There's what I call the "cheap shoes fallacy" at play
| here.
|
| When you buy cheap shoes, they break quickly, forcing you
| to buy another pair, ultimately costing _more_ over time
| than if you had just bought good shoes to begin with.
|
| The same applies to food. When you buy cheap food, it
| will nourish you only a little bit, forcing you to buy
| more of it, ultimately costing _more_ over time than if
| you had just bought good food to begin with.
|
| Cheap, industrial food contains the minimum amount of
| actual food to pass for grub, and is laden with
| artificial flavorings to fool your brain into thinking
| you're actually eating something, when you're not.
| hervature wrote:
| Cheap unsustainable food or sustainably priced food is
| the decision we all have to make. Unfortunately, the
| government subsidizes some of the worst food industries
| in the name of providing "staples". We can't feed 8
| billion people Wagyu beef for every meal. Yes, the world
| needs to eat more lentils. We can't complain that eating
| sustainable is "hard" when we really mean "it is 50% more
| expensive". Great, Disney World every 7 years instead of
| every 5. For the families that truly need help (which is
| the minority), we have programs to assist. But instead of
| giving them government cheese, let's push for locally
| sourced ingredients. But again, that's "hard".
| trav4225 wrote:
| Well, if she's a mother of three, we already know her
| life goal is obviously planetary destruction, so what's a
| few avocados grown by Big Ag? ;-)
| tjr225 wrote:
| Or perhaps conservative government made birth control and
| abortion illegal. Or perhaps she was raped. Come on.
| Fricken wrote:
| Raped 3 times? Or were they triplets?
| tjr225 wrote:
| You really don't think that happens? Try even a cursory
| google search. Come on.
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=raped+multiple+times&ie=U
| TF-...
| coliveira wrote:
| If it is done by big agrobusiness, it is bad for the
| environment/poor people. This is a constant that won't
| change. The only good food is done by local farmers.
| barathr wrote:
| Even the latter statement has to be hedged, unfortunately
| (e.g., see the Dust Bowl), though it is more often the
| case. It really comes down to sustainable vs. unsustainable
| practices.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| Yes, you have to be careful of people's romanticism
| around farming. A single small farm may not cause much
| damage, but millions of small farms can easily.
| barathr wrote:
| The key with small farms is that they have "skin in the
| game" and also the feedback loop is faster since they are
| often on the land and see the effects of what they do.
| Calvin02 wrote:
| I find it hard to believe that large farms don't have
| "skin in the game".
|
| I would think that they manage their farm land as an
| investment. It isn't easy to move to a different area due
| to labor, equipment, investment into the ground, etc.
|
| If anything, I'd expect a small farm operation to easily
| relocate should the land become less productive.
| barathr wrote:
| Sustainability is often about long-term productivity, not
| short-term productivity. A piece of land that's going to
| be in a family for multiple generations is a different
| thing from a corporate operation that is looking for
| quarterly or yearly gains. Yes there are some in the
| latter category that are thinking long term, but how
| often are they thinking one generation out, let alone
| multiple?
| ars wrote:
| > The only good food is done by local farmers.
|
| That's never made any sense to me. Why does the food become
| bad just because I'm farther from the farmer? The
| environmental emissions from transport are minimal, so that
| can't be it.
|
| Are you trying to say eat from grown by a small farmer?
|
| But that's no good either, small farmers are less
| efficient. Or maybe you are valuing something else over
| environmental efficiency?
|
| Can you explain?
| ganafagol wrote:
| A farmer with 20-30 cows tends to have a quite close
| connection with their animals. They often have a small
| plot of land they can use as pasture and the barn is not
| super-optimized to squeeze out the last square centimeter
| for effiency since there are no scale effects where it
| would have any noticeable effect. Each animal is a being
| they have often times have a connection with, and empathy
| for. Most small farmers I know can describe to me quite
| vividly the personality of each individual of their
| animals. They care.
|
| Big dairy industry looks different. A big farm with 1000
| milking cows is hyper-optimized for maximum profit. There
| is not enough pasture to go round, so depending on
| regulations of the country, the animals may never go
| outside ever. If you can save 1% on buying in cheaper
| food, even if it comes from half a continent away, you do
| it since that's easily a six-figure savings. If you can
| increase stocking density withing law limits, you do it.
| If you need to use less sand or can get away with
| cleaning their water bins less often, you do it. Each
| animal is a number that turns food expenses into milk
| profits, that's it.
| newsclues wrote:
| Transportation is a huge component.
|
| There are many advantages but not shipping, flying or
| excessive trucking makes it much greener.
|
| Add in regenerative organic farming processes, and you
| pay farmers to improve the land.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Agriculture at extreme scale is less efficient. It's
| basically a mining operation with food as an output.
|
| Where I live, we buy summer crops from local farms about
| 30 miles away. The farmers sell for half of retail, and
| make about double. They are fairly large operations with
| a diverse set of products and have a sustainable, smart
| approach to farming -- most have been in business for
| hundreds of years and plan to remain.
|
| The monocropping of the Midwest is creating a desert,
| period. We'll be importing corn in my lifetime. Vegetable
| crops in the Colorado irrigation corridor are vulnerable
| to climate change.
| jefftk wrote:
| _> We'll be importing corn in my lifetime._
|
| Want to bet on whether the US will become a net corn
| importer?
| jacobolus wrote:
| I imagine this will depend substantially on federal
| agriculture policy. Corn is currently heavily subsidized.
| ganafagol wrote:
| Also, check out the article this thread is about. It
| discusses a few reasons.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| Global scale agricultural monocropping using industrial
| processes and chemicals. Local sourcing implicitly means
| small scale farms as well.
| mijamo wrote:
| I don't know about the US but in Europe small farmers are
| often passionate, and you have to be because you are a
| business owner earning little money while having a lot to
| handle and nearly no holiday and leaving far away from
| everything. Many of them care deeply about their products
| and try to do things properly and sustainably even if it
| means less profit. The big farmers are more like regular
| business owner employing cheap labour and trying to
| maximize profit while caring much less about the impact.
| Note that small farmer can be very small indeed, many of
| them don't even have separate employees.
|
| It is not an exact rule of course. There are many
| irresponsible small farmers who just inherited a small
| farm and run it poorly, and there's some big farms that
| do things very properly.
| coliveira wrote:
| Big farm operations create damage in so many fronts.
| First, they extract a large portion of the profits from
| farming, making Wall Street very rich and leaving the
| rural population poor (this is true if the farming is
| done in America or in other countries). As a result, this
| takes land from the population to the hands big
| companies, with bad political results. Finally, the
| methods are bad for the environment too, because Wall
| Street fat cats don't have to live in the devastated
| environment.
| voxic11 wrote:
| What about those of us who live in places where very little
| food will grow?
| zdragnar wrote:
| Everyone must live in high rises so densely packed each
| forms its own little metropolis, of course.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| Everything is sustainable if you put enough chemicals into
| the ground and divert a few rivers! Ask the Dutch.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| Avocado have been a thing in South Africa for a long time
| already. Trees in gardens, fruit in supermarkets. Seasonal export
| to Europe.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| They were a thing in Kenya and Tanzania and Zimbabwe too, at
| least 10 years ago. And super delicious. A couple times, our
| driver stopped by a tree on the side of the road and we just
| picked a few and ate them right then and there as a snack.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| Given the globalization of Mexican cartels and avocados being a
| staple export of theirs, I am curious to see the outcome. Will
| the cartels go to Africa or will they stomach the shrinking
| margins on their product?
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| I don't know why you are being downvoted. Mexican Cartels are
| alive, and prospering.
|
| They have their money in many farms. It's a great way to
| launder money.
| fireattack wrote:
| Downvoting pattern on HN is the weirdest thing, even weirder
| than Reddit sometimes.
|
| I can feel _what_ kind of the comments will be downvoted but
| can 't pin down _why_. The best I can come up with is that
| certain comment will be downvoted when the "mood" (not even
| narrative) of it doesn't fit with the others.
| huachimingo wrote:
| Funny enough, there was a time (and still is) in Chile where
| avocados were so overpriced that one guy went to the car store
| and used them as currency to buy one.
| flobosg wrote:
| Last time I checked, a few months ago, avocados in Chile and
| Germany were priced almost identically.
| maddyboo wrote:
| A few years ago, my partner went to the Golden Gate Produce
| Terminal in South SF on a whim. It wasn't entirely clear if
| members of the public were welcome, but no one seemed to notice
| or care.
|
| While perusing the stocks, my partner happened upon a smiling
| vendor with a big knife standing beside a pile of boxed avocados.
| He said, "You have to taste my avocados!" as he sliced open a
| petite dark green fruit. My partner accepted the cube offered on
| a toothpick and gingerly placed it onto his tongue. Upon closing
| his mouth, the cube seemed to spontaneously melt into one of the
| most buttery, savory, rich substances he had ever tasted.
| Needless to say, my partner brought home a big box of avocados
| that day.
|
| I was skeptical when he first told me the story, but we quickly
| had a knife and spoons at the ready and were digging in to a ripe
| specimen. He wasn't lying after all, this was among the best
| things I had ever tasted, similar to an excellent piece of salmon
| sashimi but... better. I confess to you that we ate that big box
| of avocados in a week or less, our intake only limited by the
| rate at which the fruit became ripe. We aren't normally
| gluttonous people, but those were some amazing avocados.
|
| We eat store bought avocados several times a week, but I
| unfortunately haven't had a single one in the years since that
| was even a hundredth as delicious as those wonderful fruits. If
| anything, the flavor and quality seems to be on the decline. We
| often joke about sneaking back into the produce terminal to find
| avocado man and his delicious avocados. Maybe one of these
| days...
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >We eat store bought avocados several times a week, but I
| unfortunately haven't had a single one in the years since that
| was even a hundredth as delicious as those wonderful fruits.
|
| I find the quality of avocados (and pretty much everything
| else) varies by the season. As you get closer to California's
| season for avocados, they taste better and better. Once they
| have to travel further, they start being more hit or miss.
|
| I haven't tasted one as good as the ones I ate off the tree in
| Kenya. Although, almost everything there seemed to taste
| better.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| I reckon it could be related to weather as well. Like grapes.
|
| Of course, there's also the quality - or not - of the soil.
| wincy wrote:
| Judging from their website it's open to the public, so I don't
| think you'll need to "sneak in" next time.
| sebmellen wrote:
| If you ever find this fabled avocado man, please send him my
| way (email in profile).
| dawnerd wrote:
| Try to find some what they call "bacon avocados". They're
| really rich and creamy. Massive too. I've only seen them a few
| times in Southern California, Ojai in particular.
| vfclists wrote:
| So Nigeria, a country which imports maize, rice and tomato paste
| thinks it should devote its land to growing avocados. SMH.
|
| There are times I wonder if Western capitalists invent and
| promote fancy new superfoods and whatnots so they can create
| agricultural and ecological stress in African and South American
| countries.
|
| Simply create excuses where they can take land away from local
| staples to cause poverty in those countries and protect their own
| farmers subsidized production of basic foods.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Western capitalists did not "invent" avocados, nor are they
| "fancy new superfoods". People objectively like them a lot, and
| biologically, they should, they're creamy, fatty goodness.
|
| It's simply a consequence of people wanting to (and being able
| to afford) good tasting food.
| vfclists wrote:
| I guess they don't realize that "being able to afford"
| implies land which should be used for to produce staple foods
| for the poor in the producing countries is used to produce
| foods which Westerners can do without.
|
| Why should Nigeria import rice and wheat and export avocados
| her citizens don't need, because the avocado farmers can
| retain export proceeds abroad, while the food importers
| profit from subsidized basic foods produced in the West?
| chr1 wrote:
| Is there research or a startup working to genetically modify
| tropical fruit trees into a form that would be easier to
| cultivate in greenhouses. There doesn't seem to be any good
| reason why an avocado can't grow on a vine or even on a seaweed.
|
| Such fruit could be cheaper and higher quality as it would be
| local and could reach ripeness on the plant. And it will be less
| susceptible to anti-gmo activists, because unlike usual GMO that
| benefits growers, or benefits customers in a non-obvious way
| (like golden rice), it will benefit directly customers who will
| be getting delicious tropical fruit which now they can taste only
| when traveling.
| leipert wrote:
| Interesting. I lived in Israel for a while, and there Rose farms
| shifted to Avocados due to cheap roses from Africa. You generally
| find Israeli Avocados here in Germany.
|
| I wonder what happens if there is an influx of avocados from
| Africa.
| cigaser wrote:
| EU has very protective market when it comes to food. Israel has
| probably resources for compliance with all the regulations. But
| there is big motivation to stop cheap imports from Africa.
| koolba wrote:
| What safety issues would there be with imported avocados?
| Compared to most fruit, it's completely sealed in a leathery
| case.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Most African companies have quota-free duty-free trade with
| the EU for practically everything.
|
| Food safety is an issue for meat, but Europe imports enormous
| quantities of fruit and vegetables from Africa (including
| avocados).
| cigaser wrote:
| In 2019 EU imported 11.3 billion eur worth of food from
| Africa, mostly tobacco, cocoa beans etc.. Citrus was only
| 0.5 billion eur. In overall EU food imports it is only 10%.
| We also exported 9 billion worth of food to Africa.
|
| Hardly enourmous, given Africa agricultural potential and
| production.
| archsurface wrote:
| I don't understand this avocado obsession of recent years. What's
| the sudden interest? "Avocado on toast" - what's that about? Some
| sort of dig? Or people genuinely think this is exciting? I grew
| up with a couple of avocado trees in my garden from '80-ish, but
| it's not like it was a rare earth mine. This makes as much sense
| to me as people getting excited about oranges; genuinely
| confused.
| staticassertion wrote:
| They're very filling, high in fat, low in sugar, and they taste
| good. You're basically eating a relatively healthy block of
| fat, to me it's sort of like asking "why do people like bacon?"
| - for the obvious reasons, salt and fat.
|
| By contrast, oranges aren't something I'd indulge in. They have
| much more sugar - ~10x what an avocado has. They're acidic.
| They're not particularly filling (low fat / protein content).
| padthai wrote:
| If you want to reduce you intake of animal produce but still
| have fatty meals your choices are limited. Avocado, olives,
| nuts and some oils are exploding in popularity due to this I
| believe.
| teej wrote:
| For last 20 years in the US, we have been recovering from
| decades of misinformation about the "dangers" of fat. The
| avocado is one item that benefits from a return to nutritional
| sanity.
|
| That shift has laid the foundation for items like avocado toast
| or Chipotle's guacamole to help popularize avocados.
|
| There are lots of other factors, I'm sure. But it helps that
| they're tasty.
| [deleted]
| antiterra wrote:
| Avocados weren't really marketed at all until the mid-90s and
| were also shunned by some due to high fat. It was a niche food
| almost completely considered a side for mexican cuisine. It has
| been expensive outside of growing areas for a while, hence the
| jokes about asking for guac at Chipotle and always being warned
| it costs another $1.39. I'd guess part of the expense is that
| it has a relatively small window between being unripe and too
| ripe.
|
| My understanding is also that it can take 20 years from pit to
| fruit-bearing-tree, so supply will tend to lag behind demand
| (which has grown globally.)
| barathr wrote:
| Only un-grafted avocados take a long time (and typically it's
| more like 10 years to fruit, not 20). Grafted cultivars vary
| in precocity, with some (e.g. Lamb) fruiting in the year
| after grafting and others (e.g. Sir Prize) taking many years
| to start fruiting.
| archsurface wrote:
| Ok, thanks. I was in sub-Saharan Africa, so zero exposure to
| the Mexican aspects, and I don't recall anyone ever giving a
| damn about fat content in anything. We also had banana,
| pawpaw, and guava trees - avos were just one of the standard
| fruits.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| Yeah, in the US avocado is seen more as an ingredient in
| savory food items, not as a fruit.
|
| No one answered you about avocado toast, but it's literally
| what it sounds like. Slice some avocado, put it on toast,
| typically with a poached egg and some seasonings of choice.
| It's seen as a quick healthy meat free breakfast or lunch
| that still has a sort of richness to it. It became a fad
| with younger people after restaurants realized it could be
| a real money maker.
| jwilber wrote:
| The previous responses cover what are probably the most
| important factors, but I think it's worth adding that
| avocados are also touted as 'super foods' in multiple
| trendy diets (eg keto).
| [deleted]
| newsclues wrote:
| Processed food is full of oil, and consumers are seeking
| healthy options while producers voraciously production growth,
| moving from oil to oil, seeking profits and sales on the trends
| of diets.
|
| I stopped eating chips with canola oil and only get the ones
| with only avocado oil, because the canola is rancid for my
| belly
| hatchnyc wrote:
| Mexican avocados were banned from import to the United States
| for over 80 years until 1997. Before that, the supply of
| avocados from California was seasonal and limited which
| discouraged restaurants from putting them on their menu and
| generally kept them more a novelty. Ironically, having a strong
| consistent supply increased demand. Also, Mexican avocados are
| generally far superior to those from California.
|
| I remember avocados from the 90s as being rock hard and mostly
| flavorless. Perhaps they were better locally, but I never had a
| tasty, buttery soft avocado until the 2000s.
| chasebank wrote:
| I couldn't disagree more! I won't buy an avocado with a label
| from Mexico or Chile because they are so watery / flavorless.
| I also happen to live in Carpinteria, CA, where our local
| avo's are second to none.
| telesilla wrote:
| Perhaps they don't export the good ones, I've enjoyed very
| much going to the markets in Mexico and asking for avocados
| for eating today and also slightly less ready ones that
| will be perfect tomorrow. The fruit sellers know exactly
| what to give you, they are perfect every time. A splash of
| lime juice and chili powder.. True culinary happiness.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Like many fruits and vegetables, I'm guessing quality has
| to do with how early it has to be picked before the ideal
| picking time in order to transit to the destination.
|
| Almost all fruits and vegetables in the US taste better
| on the US West coast, in my opinion, and I suspect it's
| because you're closer to the origin
| (Cali/Mexico/WA/OR/the rest of Central and South America)
| so the fruit/vegetables take less time in transit and
| therefore don't have to be picked so early.
| dawnerd wrote:
| Avocados don't ripen on the tree (although they will drop
| eventually). So there isn't so much early harvesting as
| long as the size is about right.
|
| Avocado also varies based on weather and age of the tree.
| jacobolus wrote:
| Local fresh avocados in Mexico are excellent. Same goes for
| tomatoes, strawberries, mangos, etc.
|
| You can't reasonably compare unripe produce transported
| from 1500 miles away with fresh ripe local produce.
|
| Avocados exported from California to the East Coast can
| also end up mediocre.
| dawnerd wrote:
| Oh man yeah avocados from that particular area so good. I
| grew up in Ojai and ones grown in the area were miles ahead
| of anything the stores sell.
|
| I also cringe when I see people pressing their thumbs into
| them at the store.
| markdown wrote:
| That's because they're harvested early for transport. Left
| on the tree two weeks longer, the fat content goes up and
| they're far tastier.
| throwaway_kufu wrote:
| Lots of marketing on the back of the recent embrace of good and
| healthy fats. They irony of the whole avocado and toast fad is
| the inclusion of the toast which more often than not is
| unhealthy...trigger the anti-anti-carb comments.
|
| I too was also lucky enough to grow up with a hand full of
| avocado trees that fruited every year, and I say that even
| though I never really cared for them personally, but to this
| day I do incorporate avocado oil into my salads and wish I had
| acquired the taste for eating the avocado itself.
|
| I think the marketing has died down but for a while I Felt it
| was almost on par with the kind of submarine marketing both
| pizza and tacos get as a favorite food of the masses.
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