You Can Eat Avocado Pits, But That Doesn’t Mean You Should

Avocados just can’t stay out of the news. Not only are they dangerous to one’s hands and wallet, but now it seems that eating their creamy green flesh isn’t enough. The new trend, my friends, is to eat the seed.

Photos by Claire Lower.

[referenced url=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2017/08/use-papery-garlic-skins-to-give-broth-big-flavour/” thumb=”https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/t_ku-large/o8dgraka36uipbhspfbg.jpg” title=”Use Papery Garlic Skins To Give Broth Big Flavour” excerpt=”Garlic skins have always been my least favourite part of peeling garlic. They either stick to my fingers, or float about the kitchen, carried by slight breezes before making their home on random appliances. But I resent them no more, my dears, because it turns out they make a kick-arse broth.”]

Though the California Avocado Commission does not recommend you do this — there simply haven’t been enough studies done for anyone to safely recommend it — there are still people out there who insist that dehydrating, pulverising and then consuming avocado pits will result in all sorts of health benefits, thanks to a bunch of antioxidants. One pit-eating enthusiast is David “Avocado” Wolfe himself, a man whose primary goal seems to be clogging Facebook with garbage health advice. (Also, his name is pretty suspicious, and I suspect some sort of Big Avocado conspiracy. Follow the money.)

While I was not convinced there were any real health benefits to consuming avocado pits, I still was curious about how they tasted. So, following the instructions in this video, I set out to break one down.

First, I dehydrated a pit in the oven for two hours at 120C.

Next, I removed the husk, split it at the seam, and chopped it up.

Then I pulverised it in the blender to make pit powder.

I tasted the pit powder, and found it to be displeasingly bitter. Most proponents of pit eating recommend blending the powder into a smoothie to hide the bitter flavour, so I did that.

I couldn’t taste the bitterness, but my smoothie had more grit to it than I like, and I did not feel that the addition of the pulverised pit elevated it in anyway. In short, consuming avocado pits has no real benefits — health or taste-wise — and should be avoided. If you really are loathe to toss them, I suggest turning them into a house plant, or tree if you have the land for it.

This is part of Eating Trash With Claire, a Lifehacker series where Claire Lower convinces you to transform your kitchen scraps into something edible and delicious.