This Magical Avocado Hack Removes the Pit Instantly With Just Your Fingers

Using a spoon to remove an avocado pit is annoying. Those little gadgets meant to help feel like a waste of money. And stabbing the pit with a knife is straight-up dangerous. Avocado-related injuries sent an average of 24 people to the hospital per day in 2018. Turns out, there’s been an easy hack to remove avocado pit all along—no special tools required.

The latest trick floating around TikTok, aka the gift that keeps on giving, involves pressing the pit out with just your fingers. Start by framing the pit with your index and middle finger and your thumb on the back of the avocado behind the pit. Apply gentle pressure and just like that, your pit pops out. If you need to save some of your avo for later, you can use this fresh stretch pod ($10).

This avocado pit hack looks almost too easy to be real. Have we really been wasting our time with elaborate pit-removal methods for nothing? As a hard-hitting investigative journalist, I decided to put this pit-popping trick to the test on five avocados ranging from firm to soft. Here’s how it went.

Does that viral TikTok avocado pit hack really work?

1. Firm

This avocado was so firm that a bit of avocado juice leaked out when I cut into it and I had to use a bit of extra force to twist the two halves away from each other. Once I began pressing, the pit was halfway across my kitchen within seconds. Aside from a deep thumb dent in the back of the avocado, the flesh was left unscathed.

2. Medium-firm

The pit bounced out with force and went straight to the floor. While pressing out the pit, my thumb punctured the skin on the back and my fingers displaced some of the flesh. But the avocado was firm enough that after a few seconds the flesh bounced back and the indents went away.

3. Medium

This avocado is about two days shy of being perfect. If I cut into hoping to smear it on some toast, I’d be a bit sad at its level of ripeness but still able to eat it. The pit was so easy to press out that I was able to push it out slow enough to pick the pit out when it was ready versus launching it into the air (like what happened with the first two). A chunk of avocado behind the pit also broke away from the flesh, but was still detached from the pit. From a mess and required-force perspective, this pit was the easier out of the five to remove.

4. Medium-soft

This is a beautifully ripened avocado. As I pressed into the flesh to remove the pit, bits of smashed avocado began to push up and over the edges of the skin as my fingers dug into and broke the flesh. Still, my fingers weren’t super messy and the pit didn’t go far.

5. Soft

*Chefs kiss.* Perfectly ripe, this avocado separated from the pit quickly and easily, but it was a bit messy. I broke away some of the avocado flesh where my thumb and index finger pressed in and avocado mush pushed up the sides of the skin.

The verdict

It’s safe to say that the viral TikTok avocado pit hack does in fact work. Any resulting mess is minimal, and the fact that all it requires is three fingers and a bit of pressure makes this avocado hack among the best of the best..

The benefits of avocados explained by a dietitian:

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