Want to eat that delicious looking avocado on your counter top, but it is still rock hard and too green to be edible? Use this trick in order to speed up the ripening process and more quickly satisfy your avocado craving.
A chemical called ethylene speeds up the ripening of many types of fruit, including avocado. When fruit ripens, one of the byproducts of the process is ethylene gas. So when avocados are exposed to other ripening fruits in a closed container, it makes some ripen faster.
Farmers and grocery stores use this knowledge to ensure that their product becomes ripe at the optimal time, namely, when it arrives at the store. They gas avocados, tomatoes, and other fruits in the store so that they will become beautifully ripe and ready to sell.
You can do this on your own by putting your avocados in a brown paper bag with a few bananas or other types of fruit. The ethylene gas will make them ready to eat faster than they would while ripening naturally on your counter top.