If you've been removing an avocado seed by striking it with a knife, you may be putting yourself at risk of an injury. While it may seem quick and easy to remove an avocado seed with a knife in your hand, it's not the safest way. I'll help you understand a safer way to handle your avocados while maximizing the nutrition you can get from them!

Cutting any food in your hand is never a good idea. It only takes one slip of the knife or an avocado to cause serious injury. As the popularity of avocados continues to grow, so have the reports of these injuries - now widely known as "avocado hand." 

To avoid such injury, the most effective way to approach cutting your avocado is as follows: 

1. Select your ripe avocado and wash. If you need help ripening avocados, see this link.
2. Wash the avocado thoroughly, dry and then place on the cutting board.
3. Carefully cut the avocado in half length-wise around the seed, with the fruit flat on the cutting board.
4. Rotate the avocado ¼ turn and cut length-wise around the seed, creating ¼ avocado segments. Put down your knife.
5. By separating the quarters, you can remove the seed seamlessly with your fingertips!

Now let's talk about how to maximize the nutrition of an avocado. When scooping the fruit out with a spoon, you might miss the fruit's most nutrient dense part - closest to the skin. Though all of the avocado pulp/flesh is good for you, try peeling your avocados instead. This reveals the beneficial plant pigment or dark green fruit closest to the skin where you get the greatest concentration of "carotenoids". It's nutritious and delicious! 

Other helpful articles:

• How to Choose and Use Avocados
• Why You Should Peel Avocados
• The Definitive Guide to Ripening Avocados