Why Would an Avocado Taste Bitter?

Alison from Coventry in the UK wrote to us over the weekend about an avocado she had bought to use in her baby food recipes.

I don’t eat avocado myself (I’m not very adventurous with food but I want my baby to have a more varied diet than mine!).

So after reading the information on your site, I decided to offer avocado to my daughter.

She really grimaced when she tasted it, spat it out and refused to open her mouth for more. I tasted it out of curiosity and it was very bitter.

Why would that be? Did I buy the wrong kind (it was one of the smaller, dark-skinned ones)? Could this harm my baby?

Alison was describing a Hass avocado – and no, it’s not the wrong kind.

All avocados should have a mild, delicate flavour when ripe… and the problem in this case, as we discovered after a couple of emails to and fro, was that the avocado was NOT fully ripe.

If you press a ripe avocado with your finger, it should leave a little ‘dent’. If there’s no dent, then the avocado is not ready to eat. If it dents very easily, on the other hand, then it is overripe and probably best avoided.

With the large, Florida avocado, the same test applies – and you can also check for over-ripeness by shaking it. If you can hear the pit rattling about inside, then it’s past its prime.

Alison – not being familiar with avocados – found that hers was relatively easy to cut and took this as an indication of ripeness. However, it transpired that the flesh was quite firm and not at all ‘creamy’, as it should have been. And the bitterness was a definite signal that the fruit wasn’t ready to eat.

As to whether or not this may have harmed her baby – it’s possible that it may cause an upset tummy if she swallowed any.

BUT, it sounds as if her reaction… which was to spit out the nasty bitter food as quickly as possible – probably meant that none of it actually went down!

And whilst we’re talking about bitter avocados, it’s worth noting that cooking avocado is not a great idea, because it tends to CAUSE bitterness, even in a ripe fruit.

If you really want to add avocado to a cooked dish, wait until the last possible moment to do so, as there will not be enough time for the bitterness to develop.