Avocado, whether it be sliced or mashed, is a superfood, essential to taco cleansing. Unfortunately, the window to enjoy a creamy, buttery, perfectly ripe avocado is small. Over the years, many rituals and superstitions have arisen in an attempt to slow the closing of that temporal aperture. Here we have set up a simple experiment to see how well three of the most popular avocado preservation methods work.

All avocados were stored in airtight containers at approximately 36° F. The pits were removed for uniform surface exposure, but we recommend leaving the pit intact whenever possible. The containers were set up with 1 of 4 conditions: stored in air alone as the control, stored with lemon juice applied to the exposed surface, stored submerged in filtered water, and stored in air with a cut onion. See below for before and after photos.

We discovered that our control maintained ripeness beyond our expectation. The lemon juice coated avocado was most successful in prohibiting browning, but imparted a significant lemon flavor. The submerged half became a slimy, gray mess. The onion cohabitation performed worse than expected and imparted a slight onion flavor.

Based on our results, we can recommend storing in a small airtight container using the traditional lemon juice technique with the pit intact. However, because of the high vibrations avocados achieve, we suggest eating the whole avocado and preventing need for storage altogether.