Preparing Super Bowl Snacks? If Guacamole is on Your List be Careful of Avocado Hand Injuries

With the Super Bowl coming up this weekend people will be gathering with friends to watch the game and eat together. One of the most popular appetizers will be guacamole, but making it comes with some warnings. Traumatic injuries caused by people attempting to slice and pit the  fruit are so common that doctors have dubbed the injury “avocado hand.” A quick search of the hashtag #AvocadoHand will display photos and stories of people accidentally stabbing themselves in the hand while trying to cut an avocado. It has gotten so bad that in 2018 the  British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons recommended that warning labels be placed on avocados.

Injuries normally occur when the person holds the avocado in their non-dominant hand while using a knife to cut the avocado with their dominant hand. The mechanism of injury is usually a stabbing injury to the non-dominant hand as the knife slips past the stone, through the soft avocado fruit.  Some avocado hand injuries are much worse than just small cuts, many people have caused themselves serious nerve and tendon injuries which require surgery and can leave you without full use of your hand. 

How to Safely Cut an Avocado:

The California Avocado Commission recommends cutting an avocado lengthwise on a cutting board until you hit the seed, turning it by a quarter and cutting lengthwise again, twisting the halves to separate them into quarters, plucking out the seed by hand and peeling off the skin by pushing your thumb under the skin and pulling it back.

The California Avocado Commission has provided a video on Cutting Avocados Correctly found here: https://californiaavocado.com/how-to/how-to-choose-and-use-an-avocado/#cut-cac