Wow. It appears that a percentage of the world population uses razor-sharp butcher’s knives to cut their avocados, and that they manage to jam the blade into the fleshy parts of the hand, severing nerves and tendons.
This is NEARLY as striking to me as The NY Times article several months ago about the dangers of immersion blenders. There are people out there who LEAVE THEM PLUGGED IN, INSERT THEIR FINGERS INTO THE ROTATING BLADE, and then manage to TRIP THE “ON” BUTTON. This is a thing.
First, anyone who uses anything sharper than a butter knife to cut an avocado doesn’t know that you shouldn’t be eating the avocado until it’s ripe. Second, there are truly many people who should be completely enclosed in bubble wrap to keep them from harming themselves.
Similarly, I remember reading articles about the large number of injuries that occurred when people were slicing bagels in half. These injuries might, in part, be caused by holding the bagel with your thumb through the hole as you slice it, even though the danger seems obvious.
Just going to point out that Googling ‘Avocado hand’ will return some images that could be particularly distressing to people that aren’t into the Saw and Hostel series of movies.
I was gonna mention the bagel/knife wound stories as well. I’d also like to mention that when I was young, I was told that the most common and worst accidental stab wounds weren’t from knives but from screwdrivers. IME, that’s been pretty accurate.
Typical. Everybody wants to talk about Avocado Diabolo, nobody remembers the attack of the killer tomatoes! Of course they are evil, its why they are delicious, saints eat Brussel sprouts, and swear that they like it!
And I bet those injuries are mostly to guys, a result of testosterone impairment. Guys will make a mistake with a sharp little knife they would never make with a table saw.
It’s pretty easy to cut yourself slicing a bagel. The way I see most people cutting bagels, I am not at all surprised that there are many injuries from cutting them in half. This is what I typically see. I’m reasonably certain I cut myself doing it that way at some point, but I’ve cut and burned myself so many times I can’t remember for certain.
I assume something similar happens with avocados, and the knife slips off the slick pit, and embeds itself into your hand.
And a butter knife to cut open an avocado? I’ve always just used a chef’s knife. It didn’t even occur to me to cut anything with a butter knife. I’m not entirely sure it would make a clean cut in the skin until the avocado is over-ripe.
I managed to badly cut the palm of my hand slicing a bagel once, maybe 20 years ago. I’m still a bit cautious when slicing one (which I do fairly often) but no repeat of the accident.
I always use sharp chef’s knives to cut avocados. You need a sharp knife to nick the pit and remove it. I’m guessing this is where the problem comes in; when you whack the pit, perhaps some people are screwing this up and slicing into their hand. I cut up a few avocados a week and have never had this happen, but I could see it.
Wait, you guys hide the sharp knives for Passover? Is that sort of like Easter Eggs? I mean, you don’t send the kids out looking for them, right? Talk about Applied Darwinism…
Observant Jews use a separate set of kosher-for-Passover silverware. As it turns out, we did have a Passover paring knife, it just took me a day or so to figure out where it was.
So, crackers for dessert? And you got kosher silverware anyway, right, but you got a separate set that’s super-kosher for just one day a year? Well, I guess if God says so, whattaya gonna do? Just glad He chose you guys and not the Methodists.
No, you do not understand. Observant Jews have 2 sets of silverware for daily use and 2 more just for passover.
This has always been why I though people cut themselves on avocados. Having the preferred technique being to cradle half of a cut avocado in one hand while trying to hit a slippery convex pit with a knife hard enough to embed the sharp blade in the pit so that you can twist it out always seemed to me a recipe for disaster.
Video. (Warning-there is an ad). I don’t see how anybody could possibly injure themselves with that technique.:rolleyes:
I use a very sharp and heavy knife to remove the seed from the avocado by dropping the knife onto the seed and giving it a twist. Pops it right out. It’s only a matter of time, probably.
I did get my fingers caught in a hand mixer though. That hurt like the dickens! I now know to wait until blades stop rotating and use the button to eject the blades.
