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Avocados, yes, my intake of these has gone way up this year. I usually have to pay around $1.50-$2 although I am paying perhaps some for convenience rather than having to stop different places. They do have them for less. I should check the Mexican store more often I'm sure. I tried Aldi once and there weren't any left. I get the feeling you have to get the timing right.
If you're going to have avocado on toast for breakfast, when you have more time, try it topped with a fried egg (leave the yolk a little runny for best effect). You want a little salt/pepper I think; I usually do this to the egg while it's cooking.
Better yet, instead of toast, make it a waffle. You don't have to make the waffle, although that would be great. For quick though use a whole grainy frozen one in the toaster; my fav is Nature's Path Chia Plus. That was one of my favorite things ever when I had an extra avocado and decided to throw that on the waffle then the egg on top.
Avocados are amazing source of veg fat. Leaving out the toast for a minute, here's what I do for lunch many days, very very easy salad with no extra dressing! Just greens of choice, avocado and fresh salsa. Doesn't have to be homemade, but it's way less good with a shelf-stable jar. To make this work for easy easy I just spend more $ than time and buy store-made or similar refrigerated fresh salsa. The avocado gives you enough fat and salsa enough acid that it basically creates its own dressing. I use chicken in there to round out the meal although it would work with other meats too, or none. Keep forgetting to give it extra squirt of fresh lime which would be nice, although it does fine without.
in Puerto Rico I had scarmables eggs with avocado and salsa and it was so good. I heard a nutritionist say that protein and fats shouldn't be eaten at the same time but I can't deny how good that was.
I will try the salsa and avocado as a dressing.
I get my hass avocados 4 in a bag for less than $3 at trader joes. That's the cheapest I have seen them in my city.
Compared to what? And what sizes are people talking about? Comparing prices without knowing what size you are talking about is kind of futile. But just for reference, I found previous threads online for 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012 asking, "Why are avocados so expensive?" To which the only rational answer is... Because.
Avocados are graded by the number of fruits contained in a 25# box. So a 70 ct avocado, as they are labeled on the box, is small, maybe 1 or 2 servings; while a 40 ct avocado is large, maybe 4 or 5 servings. Ask your produce guy what size they are selling today, if you can't see the box.
I don't want to make anybody cry by telling you about the low prices here in Hawai'i for local grown avos , but I called an old buddy in the grocery bidness in Austin, and he said that today his store is selling 70 ct Hass avos 2/$1, and 40 ct for $1.77 ea. Sure, you want the large and extra large for big pretty slices, but at those prices the small ones are a much better deal for guacamole, even with higher percentage waste.
They are just average sized avocados. Next time that I am at the market and eye the avocados, I'll weigh one.
Cheap in Hawaii - I wonder where those avocados are exported to.
I don't know if any are. Maybe we eat them all. Shipping them to California seems like kind of a "coals to Newcastle" kind of thing. Besides, you'd be surprised... a lot of the pineapples sold in Hawai'i are from Costa Rica. :smak:
This conversation reminded me, years ago I lived in Long Beach, California, about two blocks from the beach. In the back yard was a huge, ancient avocado tree. Starting in November, and running through March, that tree would drop about 8 extra large avocados a day... over a pound apiece. It was an embarassment of riches. And a chore to keep up with. And you couldn't park under it. Those big bombs would dent your car!
Shut your mouth and start mailing me avocados, mister. They're $1.99/each here, no matter what the size. I buy them, sure, because I love them, but I feel raped sometimes.
I know it's kind of an embarrassment of riches here in California when it comes to well just about everything.
Until this thread came along I hadn't really thought much about why you can't get the fantastic Hawaiian avocados on the mainland, I just knew that you can't. You can't even carry them in your luggage when you leave the islands, because besides going through TSA at the airport, you have to go through Agricultural Inspection Stations, where they open your luggage and confiscate fruit.
So I went digging, and I found out that California avocado growers got Hawaiian imports banned in 1908 due to issues with fruit flies, and that ban is still in place. Avos can be treated for fruit flies now, which adds to the cost, but it really isn't worth it unless you are dealing in at least container sized lots... which hardly anyone is in a position to do.
Why? Because in Hawai'i today most of the avocados are small grower sidelines, like coffee growers in Kona who have a few avocados, a few macadamias. Oh, and it's hard to market Hawaiian avos outside the local stores and farmers markets because there are over 300 kinds grown on the Big Island alone!
It's true, we have amazing varieties of avocados, from "cocktail" size fingerlings to long gourd shaped to big round ones; with flesh from green to yellow to orange to cream colored; peels with varied textures from smooth to bumpy to scaly leather, and green to purple to grey to brown to black in color; and fat content from 3% to 25%. And y'all say Hass and Fuerte and Lula, while we say Nishikawa, Yamagata, Ohata.
Here's an article you may enjoy, about avocado enthusiast Ken Love, who is publisher of a wall chart of key Hawiian avo types that hangs in many stores and kitchens on the Big Island.
Quote:
Even today many of the local avocados carry the Japanese names of Kona coffee growers: Nishikawa, Yamagata, Ohata. “We have all three races of avocados here,” Love says. “We have West Indians, like the Malama, with smooth skin and large fruit; we have Guatemalans with hard, pebbly skin, like the Hawaiian Hass; and we have small, thin-skinned Mexicans, like the Linda.” With that diversity come advantages. We have varieties that grow at different altitudes and microclimates and trees that fruit at different times of the year; so, in theory, Hawai‘i growers can produce avocados year-round. Hana Hou: The Magazine of Hawaiian Airlines - Current Issue
And if you look at the strip of photos down the center of the poster, showing avocados growing on trees, you can clearly see why...
Quote:
"The name 'Avocado' originates from the Aztec name ahuacacuauhitl meaning testicle tree!"
This little nugget of information comes from the following very informative site about top US mainland varieties, including where they are grown and when they are in season:
Interesting info Open D thanks for sharing it. From looking at the poster it seems some grocers around here might have sold "hass" that were actually "hall" from FL. Interesting I'm going to really keep my eye on this at my produce section.
Macadamias are another product that is ridiculously high! A container about 4 ounces was over $16so about $64 per pound.
Interesting info Open D thanks for sharing it. From looking at the poster it seems some grocers around here might have sold "hass" that were actually "hall" from FL. Interesting I'm going to really keep my eye on this at my produce section.
Yeah, I think there is some mislabeling that goes on, at least partially to cash in on the popularity of Hass, but maybe some of it ignorance. And besides, most consumers don't know the difference. I've seen three very different kinds of avocados piled in the same bin and labeled "Hass."
That chart from toptropicals should be helpful in sorting out what's what.
Quote:
Macadamias are another product that is ridiculously high! A container about 4 ounces was over $16so about $64 per pound.
I agree, although I know how hard they are to grow and process. A friend has a few trees and he's always up against weather issues and rats gnawing on the nuts and spoiling them when they fall, and then having to get them dehulled, then storing them until they dry to exactly the right level to shrink the nut slightly so that it loosens enough to be able to crack the shell without breaking the meat, and that shell is the hardest in the world to crack... then roasting.
I can buy mac nuts in the shell for under $5/lb here, but it's hardly worth the savings over the maybe $12/lb for shelled nuts because the shells are so darned hard to crack. But prices for those little 4 oz. containers are ridiculous, even here.
Funny that they used to be treated as weed trees in their native Australia...
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, but I called an old buddy in the grocery bidness in Austin, and he said that today his store is selling 70 ct Hass avos 2/$1, and 40 ct for $1.77 ea. Sure, you want the large and extra large for big pretty slices, but at those prices the small ones are a much better deal for guacamole, even with higher percentage waste. 
I wonder where those avocados are exported to.
Hawaiian avocado varieties
