60 Fun Facts About Avocado

Botanically speaking, the avocado fruit is classified as what?

Unlike a peach or cherry, there is no hard stony layer around the seed, which is what rules out the drupe label.

The avocado tree belongs to the same plant family as which two kitchen staples?

The laurel family, Lauraceae, is full of aromatic and often toxic species; the avocado is one of the few grown for its fruit.

Which country was the world's leading avocado producer in 2024?

Its output doubled between 2013 and 2023, and Michoacán's so-called Green Gold Belt became the world's largest integrated avocado industry.

Which single cultivar accounts for around 80% of all avocados grown in the world?

Its bumpy skin turns purplish-black when ripe, and it rhymes with 'pass', though supermarkets often misspell it Haas.

What was Rudolph Hass's day job when he raised the original Hass avocado tree in the 1920s?

He earned 25 cents an hour at the Pasadena post office and sold his first surplus fruit to co-workers there.

In which year did Rudolph Hass patent his avocado tree?

He had planted the seed in 1926 and had tried at least twice to graft over the seedling before a grafter talked him out of chopping it down.

In which year was the Hass avocado 'mother tree' cut down after succumbing to root rot?

It was 76 years old and had stood in front of a suburban house for decades; its wood was saved for a memorial.

In which Southern Californian community did the original Hass avocado tree grow?

Hass bought the 1.5-acre grove at 430 West Road with all his savings and a loan from his sister after seeing a magazine drawing of an avocado tree with dollar bills hanging from it.

The word 'avocado' comes via Spanish 'aguacate' from a word in which language?

The Nahuatl word āhuacatl was also used as a euphemism for 'testicle', which is where the popular claim about the word's origin comes from.

By what reptilian name was the avocado commonly known in Florida before 1915?

The name was a corruption of 'avogato pear', and Californians of the time tended to call it ahuacate instead.

The name 'guacamole' comes from a word that literally translates as what?

'Poor man's butter', mantequilla de pobre, is a different dish of avocado, tomato, oil and citrus that predates dairy cattle in the Americas.

Which country is the world's second-largest avocado grower, with orchards on well-watered volcanic soils?

Its Hass output grew sixfold in ten years, and more than half its exports go to the Netherlands.

Which Mexican state produced about three-quarters of the country's avocados in 2024?

It exported 81% of its crop to the United States that year, worth $2.7 billion, and its growers face extortion from drug cartels.

Roughly what share of avocados eaten in the US in 2024 came from its southern neighbour?

The US only lifted its ban on Mexican avocado imports in the 1990s, which is a big reason guacamole consumption exploded afterwards.

Which US state has made the avocado its official state fruit?

The state grows about 90% of America's crop, and San Diego County is its most productive area.

Which San Diego County town styles itself the 'Avocado Capital of the World'?

The title is self-declared and disputed by Uruapan in Michoacán, which makes the same claim.

Placing an avocado in a bag with a banana speeds up ripening because bananas give off which gas?

Supermarkets use the same trick industrially, gassing hard fruit in ripening rooms so it is ready when it reaches the shelf.

What did hidden supermarket footage show shoppers doing that led Gil Henry to pioneer the 'ripening room'?

Shoppers were leaving without buying, so Henry, of Escondido, started selling pre-ripened fruit instead.

What toxin in avocado leaves and skins is dangerous to livestock, birds and pets?

The ripe flesh contains too little to bother most humans, but the ASPCA lists the fruit as toxic to horses.

What is traditionally added to cut avocado or guacamole to slow it turning brown?

The browning is an enzymatic reaction driven by polyphenol oxidase once the flesh meets air, so an airtight lid helps too.

Most of the fat in an avocado is which type?

About three-quarters of the fruit's calories come from fat, mostly oleic acid, the same fat that dominates olive oil.

The oldest known avocado remains, about 10,500 years old, were found at Huaca Prieta in which country?

Those early wetland dwellers ate avocados alongside chillies, molluscs, sharks and sea lions.

Avocado domestication is thought to have begun in the Tehuacán Valley of which Mexican state?

Pits from Coxcatlán Cave there were long thought to be the oldest avocado evidence anywhere, at 9,000 to 10,000 years old.

In which year were avocado trees first brought to California, from Nicaragua?

Florida and Hawaii had them earlier, from 1833, but it took until 1871 for a Santa Barbara judge to cultivate them properly in California.

How much did private chefs pay per Hass avocado at a Pasadena grocery in the 1930s?

That was a very high price at the time; the fruit's big size and nutty taste won over private chefs before the general public.

What share of proceeds did nurseryman Harold Brokaw get in his 1935 Rudolph Hass deal?

Brokaw specialised in the new cultivar and often sold out, while Hass himself made comparatively little from the tree that came to dominate the world market.

A 2019 genetic study found the Hass avocado is 61% Mexican and 39% which other avocado race?

The seed came from a Whittier nurseryman who collected seeds from any source he could, even restaurant scraps, so nobody knows the parent variety.

Besides two Mesoamerican highland types, what is the third major domesticated avocado landrace?

The lowland race grows from Guatemala down through Costa Rica and Colombia to Peru, and all three were described in the Florentine Codex.

Which cultivar, commercialised from budwood imported from Atlixco in 1911, was the dominant US avocado for the first half of the 20th century?

Its name means 'strong' in Spanish, and Rudolph Hass was trying to graft it onto his seedlings when his famous tree refused to take.

What does the avocado industry call small seedless fruits grown from unpollinated blossoms?

Usually discarded for their size, they are occasionally sold as 'cocktail avocados' that can be eaten whole, skin and all.

Compared with apples, growing avocados needs roughly what multiple of the water?

Compared with tomatoes the gap is 18-fold, and in Michoacán water use can exceed the renewable supply.

An avocado flower opens twice on different days, once functioning as female and once as what?

The timing differs between 'A' and 'B' cultivars, which is why growers interplant types and why the species is so hard to breed.

According to The Washington Post, which Australian cook may have been the first to put avocado toast on a modern café menu, in Sydney in 1993?

The dish is documented in Brisbane as early as 1929, and San Franciscans were eating avocado on toast in 1885.

A 2016 column about '$22 smashed avocado' made avocado toast a stereotype of which generation?

Columnist Bernard Salt later claimed the piece was satire, but the Sydney Morning Herald calculated the savings would barely dent a deposit anyway.

Which privateer and naturalist gave the first English guacamole-style recipe in 1697?

He recorded it in A New Voyage Round the World during one of his three circumnavigations of the globe.

National Guacamole Day, 16 September, falls on the same date as which national holiday?

Cinco de Mayo and Super Bowl Sunday are the other two dates that spike US avocado sales.

The record guacamole made by 500 people in Peribán in 2022 weighed nearly how many kilograms?

The exact figure was 4,972 kg, about 11,000 pounds of dip.

In Argentina, Chile, Peru and Uruguay, the avocado goes by which Quechua-derived name?

Chileans eat 'pan con palta' for breakfast, a habit documented in a cookbook as far back as 1926.

In Trinidad and Tobago the avocado is known by which name, derived from the French Creole for 'l'avocat'?

In Portuguese it is abacate, and Australians clipped the English word to 'avo', a habit that has spread to South Africa and the UK.

In parts of India and Hong Kong, the avocado is known by which dairy-inspired name?

In southern India it usually ends up in milkshakes rather than on toast.

How is avocado traditionally eaten in Brazil?

Savoury avocado dishes are seen as exotic there, the exact opposite of Mexico and Chile; the Philippines shares Brazil's sweet tooth for it.

Which supermarket chain introduced avocados to Britain in the 1960s as the 'avocado pear'?

Much of the fruit's later UK success is credited to a promotional campaign launched by South African growers in 1995.

Avocado oil is prized for frying because of its exceptionally high what?

Refined avocado oil holds up to about 271°C, though a 2020 UC Davis study found most bottles sold in the US were rancid or adulterated.

What is 'avocado hand'?

US emergency-room cases rose steadily between 1998 and 2017 in step with the fruit's popularity.

To which genus does the avocado belong?

The genus is thought to have originated in North America and diversified in Central America during the Pleistocene.

Which British botanist gave the avocado its scientific name in 1768?

Hans Sloane, a distractor here, actually coined the English word 'avocado' in a 1696 index of Jamaican plants.

The avocado's oversized seed may have evolved to be swallowed whole by which extinct animals?

The 'evolutionary anachronism' idea also names gomphotheres and glyptodonts, though critics point out agoutis and spectacled bears eat avocados happily today.

Roughly how large was the world avocado harvest in 2024?

Analysts expect it to become the world's most traded fruit by 2030, with as many as 30 countries producing commercially.

How long does an avocado tree grown from seed typically take to bear fruit?

Grafting a branch from a fruiting tree speeds things up and, unlike a seedling, guarantees the same fruit as the parent.

Which of these animals can be killed by eating avocado leaves or skin?

Cats, dogs, cattle, goats, rabbits, birds and fish are also on the list; the leaves of the Guatemalan type are the worst offenders.

Which Mexican town competes with a San Diego County rival as 'Avocado Capital of the World'?

It sits in the heart of Michoacán's avocado belt, which produces ten times the output of any other Mexican state.

A raw avocado's flesh is roughly what percentage water?

The rest is about 15% fat, 9% carbohydrate and 2% protein, giving 160 calories per 100 grams.

In which year was the avocado plant introduced to Spain, its first European home?

Indonesia followed around 1750, Brazil in 1809 and the US mainland in 1825; the Ottoman Empire only got it in 1908.

Which country was the largest supplier of avocados imported into the European Union in 2019?

Peru's Hass orchards cover thousands of hectares in the centre and west of the country, and it was also second-largest supplier to the US and Asia.

Guasacaca, an avocado-based sauce, is a staple of Venezuela and which Caribbean country?

It is thinner and more herb-forward than guacamole and typically spooned over grilled meat and arepas.

In Ethiopia, avocado juice is usually served with a slice of lemon and which British soft drink?

The juice is made by blending the fruit with sugar and milk or water, and it is often layered with other fruit juices.

Moroccan chilled avocado-and-milk drinks are flavoured with a touch of what?

The drink is sweetened with confectioner's sugar, in the same sweet tradition as Brazilian and Vietnamese avocado shakes.

Which European country received over half of Colombia's avocado exports in 2024?

Rotterdam's port makes the Dutch the entry point for much of Europe's fresh produce, which is then redistributed.

The clipped form 'avo' originated as a diminutive in which variety of English?

It has since caught on in Britain and beyond, helped along by the smashed-avocado toast boom.

Which country's growers launched the 1995 promotional campaign credited with the avocado's success in the UK?

Sainsbury's had introduced the 'avocado pear' to Britain in the 1960s, but it took decades to become mainstream.