Does Your Avocado Look Gross Inside? Here's How To Tell If You Can Eat It.

Avocados might give apple pie a run for its money as the most American of foods. As a country, we eat the lion’s share of the planet’s creamy green fruit, accounting for 40% of the world’s imports , or about 3 billion pounds annually. And no, it’s not all going to millennials for their toast. In fact, a whopping 20% o f the year’s avocado sales take place during a certain major sporting event in February, because, like most things, halftime is just better with guacamole.

For the most part, avocados love us back. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture,they’re a good source of several nutrients most Americans don’t get enough of, including fiber, potassium and monounsaturated fats, the heart-healthy kind. Avocados are one of the rare plant-based sources of such fats.

But if you’ve ever sliced into an avocado to find mold, dark spots or streaks, or weirdly stringy flesh, you may have wondered if love was enough. As it turns out, avocados are a surprisingly delicate fruit, and not well suited to being shipped thousands of miles.

“Avocados are unique fruits in that they do not ripen on the tree,” explained Darryl Holliday,a food scientist, chef and executive director of the Arkansas Food Innovation Center. “You have to cut them down before they ripen, and there are so many seemingly minor things that can affect that process.” Ripening too quickly, being held at the wrong temperature (too hot or too cold), cracked skins, bruising from even a small fall or a too-tight squeeze… all these things can lead to a less-than-perfect avocado experience.

The good news is, in most cases, the damage is purely aesthetic. Still, to be safe, we asked Holliday and several other experts about the various ways avocados can go bad,