Why does it not surprise me that you would casually suggest some light time travel…
Also, I think pushing avocados as the baby’s-first-solid should be the marketing move. My kids both loved it, and it’s such a superfood. The avocado toasters much be getting to child-bearing age…
You need a press or a centrifuge spinner to extract it, it ain’t rocket science. Any novice welder could make a press, and the spinner might require some level of expertise of engineering.
When a farmer has entire warehouses full of rotting avocados they had been expecting to ship out to the global produce market it’s still a little more complicated than “just build a centrifuge, you’re in the oil business now!”
Like melting butter in the microwave.
14.5 seconds = frozen solid chunk
14.6 seconds = bubbling oil
Yes, that’s the BS part of the story. It was pushed by an Australian millionaire to “explain” why those “lazy” and “self-indulgent” Millenials couldn’t buy homes. It’s part and parcel with the stupid victim-blaming claim that young people aren’t succeeding in broken and rigged neoliberal economies mainly because they won’t give up small pleasures.
Ok, then, you avocado hater. /s
It’s a pear! What did anyone expect? It’s what they all do.
When you say “the avocado toast thing” it’s really unclear what you meant. Yes to all you’ve said, but avocado toast itself doesn’t deserve scorn.
I just whip em around in a circle over my head. Not effective but it sure is fun.
Mom always said you were the smart one.
The article specifically mentions the lack of people buying avocado toast in cafes as the root cause of the glut of avocados in Australia. If you attribute anything to young people buying avocado toast other than that they may have enjoyed a healthy breakfast, it is probably BS.
It seems that’s what they’re doing.
Of course, I’d expect that a pack of Australian avocados could strip a hog down to the bone in seconds.
I suspect that this has been the plan all along. The annual calorie to acre ratio for corn is apparently 12.3 million. The same ratio for avocados seems to be closer to 50 million. The avocado boom may very well be about sustaining more animal food with smaller amounts of land. I haven’t been able to find anything about their relative water or energy intensities.
It really frustrates me when i see food being wasted because it cannot be “sold”. Yes it can, it can be used preserves, distillation, integrated into other foods and recipes. The problem is that farmers aren’t equipped to handle those kinds of logistics for surplus of foodstuffs and the government should be stepping in to make it happen where nothing goes to waste, and excess food can also be redistributed to those that need it.
Just as an example avocado can be used in baked goods, salsas, drinks, cosmetics, oils, etc. so it seems disingenuous to say that there really is no demand and that the excess is just being discarded.
One of the problems with so many industries becoming dependent on a stable global supply chain is that a lot of businesses just don’t have the storage capacity to deal with major market fluctuations. Manufacturers and retailers no longer keep warehouses full of materials and goods because they don’t want to pay for storage they don’t need. On the production side that also means growers have limited capacity to keep the stuff they produce since they’re usually able to sell it in a timely manner (and fresh produce has a very limited shelf life anyway).
There’s just not as much flexibility built into the system as we ought to have for situations like these.
14.7 seconds: buttersplosion
Also, where the heck are people buying an avocado for 60 cents at the supermarket!? I’m typically seeing 3-4 times that, and that number hasn’t changed.
Also also, avocado trees bear fruit for decades, so while farmers may have a bad year (and it might make sense for some of them to get government support to compensate), the rest of the supply chain and food industry are going to take one look at a now-cheap source of healthy fats and ramp up everything else avocadoes can be used for. Next year, or the latest the year after, the farmers will be fine. “Food got cheaper” should never be cause for alarm in any remotely sanely operating society (barring huge environmental externalities).
As per the article, in Australia. Can confirm. $0.99AUD seems to be the standard around where I live (at least 1500km from the nearest avocado farm) rather than $0.60AUD, although I have seen them that low.
Good to know. I didn’t realize so much of the cost near me came from (presumably) shipping.
So, why are avocados still $1/each, as they have been for about the last decade? It can’t all be transportation, someone’s making a fortune out of this disaster.
I will take them! All of them. Just box 'em up and ship them here, I’m sure they’ll be fine.
