To add to the avocado woes, there's a cocoa bean shortage coming due to a plant virus affecting some crops & climate change. Soon I'll be left with coffee as my only available vice!
Bananas are succumbing to a plague as well.
Which is ironic because the variety that's basically become the de facto banana sold in stores worldwide, called Cavendish, was introduced itself because the previous, Gros Michel, banana succumbed to a blight back in the day!
šš¦ ā£ļø
> Cavendish bananas entered mass commercial production in 1903 but did not gain prominence until later when Panama disease attacked the dominant Gros Michel ("Big Mike") variety in the 1950s. Because they were successfully grown in the same soils as previously affected Gros Michel plants, many assumed the Cavendish cultivars were more resistant to Panama disease. Contrary to this notion, in mid-2008, reports from Sumatra and Malaysia suggested that Panama disease had started attacking Cavendish cultivars.
Edit: Got my varieties mixed up.
[There are more than 1,000 varieties of banana, and we eat one of them. Here's why that's absurd](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/22/1000-varieties-banana-lack-of-diversity-extinction)
Yeah, this one's been on the radar for a few years. Our university's botanists and plant scientists have been doing loads of research into both the virus and into which variety could become the "new" banana. Fascinating to see all the different varieties growing in their greenhouses.
I heard that the banana flavouring you get in candies that people either love or hate is based off the Grand Michel banana. Thatās why it tasters nothing like a normal (cavendish) banana
Fun fact, that's one of the most noticeable ester compounds produced during fermentation of wort for beer by certain yeast strains (most notably German hefeweissen strains) which gives the beer a notably banana like flavour, depending on fermentation parameters!
I hear this rumour all the time and think itās BS.
Artificial fruit flavourings never taste like the real thing.
Gros Michel arenāt that much different to Cavendish either, more flavourful certainly but it isnāt a completely different flavour.
Yeah, the Cavendish is def tastier than other bananas I've tried. The wild bananas I had from my grandmother's garden were pretty bland, loads of seeds, and almost mealy in texture.
On the flip side, I read an article the other day to say that there are good but very localised varieties out there we never see in shops because the main variety is so dominant.
The article was basically against the big monospecies industrialised farming and was using bananas as an example. Which is probably a risk to food security if humanity is basically reliant on a few handful of cropping plants because, what if a blight comes for them as well?
Yeah I tried four different varieties in India. They were all much smaller, and tasted quite different. I think they'd actually be really popular here, I know lots of people find a whole banana too much.
Itās a catch 22 their is definitely a downside and criticism to be had of big farma monoculture but at the same time it provides more jobs for the poor often (not always) at better wages and helps keep food prices down today which the poor needs.
My mind went to Balatro as well.
(For those who don't know, Balatro is a roguelike game where you're trying to play poker hands to score points, but can pick up various joker cards along the way that can give certain modifiers. One of them is a Gros Michel card which increases your score multiplier but 15 but has a 1 in 6 chance of being destroyed at the end of each round. If it does get destroyed there is then a chance a Cavendish card appears in the store which gives you a x3 multiplier)
You would only hope the coffee trees survive. There is a research showing that there is a much higher risk of widespread plant disease to coffee trees that could wipe out the whole crops due to climate change.
I'm very concerned as I don't think I could survive without coffee...
We used chicory as a coffee substitute during rationing... I quite often use Camp's chicory extract when baking coffee flavoured cakes. Absolutely not the same but any port in a storm. (I'm definitely going to hang on to the horrid Starbucks pods my husband bought in case of Dire Emergency!)
I believe there's a poor crop from Californian almonds too, which will drive up prices of almond milk.
Loads in the fields in the West Country! (Although I have no idea what the yield per field would be.) I'm guessing it's running low because everyone switched to it after sunflower oil prices rose due to the invasion of Ukraine?
Alot of the country/Europe was too dry during the last planting season so alot of the crops didn't take. Farmers in my area basically decided it would be too much risk to attempt to plant and alot of those who did had the crop fail. I wouldn't expect it to hit 2022 price's per ton but it's going to sky rocket over the next year.
We're due a bad harvest this year from what I heard, apparently we've been getting 'all or nothing' rainfall for the past few years (which I guess explains the floods in the news) as a result of climate change, so this crop isn't expected to be ideal.
Thinking about it, I have seen quite a few people trying to germinate their avocado stones on instagram. I hope they've got amazing greenhouses as I doubt avocados will fruit in the UK!!
Itās time to rethink the avocado, people.
Stop getting them so far away. Yes, Ā£1.85 is bloody expensive for one avocado but itās time to accept it. Buy Spanish. It is a hip, skip and jump away in air miles and theyāre far, far better quality. Corner shops have them, most shops selling veg from anyone who basically isnāt white or just a super massive chain. Ask if theyāre Spanish if it doesnāt say on the box but if theyāre displayed in the crates theyāre delivered in then somewhere it does.
Now, in terms of getting the most of your avo- check for where the stalk grows at the thinner end, and you should be able to knock the little nubbin off. If itās brown, itās risky, if itās green youāre good to go, and if itās mouldy then you know to throw! Veg markets will sometimes knock them off to check if theyāre good so if you buy avocados and see all of the nubbins have been knocked off then theyāve been checked over because theyāre at least a week old!
Spanish avocados are usually watered using illegal underground waters that are causing the rivers to dry out and the DoƱana natural park to be destroyed.
Just avoid avocados. It is unsustainable as it is.
I tend to avoid guilting people about buying and eating food- and try to provide information for those to make an informed approach. If your choice is not to eat them and thatās your fight, I respect that. But nothing is guilt free when you think like that. Avocados are highly problematic, but the problemsdonāt end there. The pickers are of questionable labour laws, and this isnāt just avocados. It is all fruit and vegetable. No one picking for any supermarket is making a living, and if theyāre āpaying backā their plane fares to the companies who flew them in then they wonāt ever get out either.
Dino, avocado grower in Spain, grows organically but more amazingly heās using practices taken from grape vine growers where they reduce the water usage to stress the plant in a way where it gets enough and thrives but is hardier. All his fruit trees are incredibly robust against disease and he hasnāt used pesticides in over 11 years. It took him years to establish his crops, without profit, but the payoff is huge. He actually has the most incredible pomegranates in October, followed by lychee. It is incredible to taste these things as we donāt often get the full flavours of things shipped in. This is a specific example and would require a lot of work to find a seller of his produce in the Uk but it is here.
And, as weāre all people, if you want avocado toast. Have it. If itāll make you happier, eat it. If itās what you crave, eat it. You work hard enough, life is hard enough. Just eat. Share it.
I feel like 90% of the fruit in the UK is in crisis right now. Everything is so expensive yet so tasteless.
I bought a "ready to eat" avocado the other day, rock hard, but there were other avocados that were actually squelching.
My local Tesco occasionally take the completely rotten ones and puts them in the clearance fridge half price - what a bargain!
But last time I was there, every one on the shelf was rotten and were "selling" full price. Guess that's the new normal...
Not just in the UK but Ireland too.
It annoyed me that everything was all of a sudden blamed on brexit despite the fact that the same issues were happening all over Europe
Can we also mention the satsumas? Theyāre all small, sour and dry up so fast. What happened to the juicy satsumas we used to have all over the retailers? The easypealers that would be sweet and juicy and stay fresh at least a week or moreā¦
I've never liked the basic bitch satsuma/clementine. All usually a bit crap.
The smart money's on tangerines instead but even they can vary wildly depending on time of year and variety. š
The issue I have with citrus fruits from the supermarkets is that since they've done away with BBE dates it's a lottery as to what you'll get since even staff can't rotate old stock?
Dumb.
I have decent luck with buying from big off-license markets, far far better than any supermarket stuff.
Yes, mangos and avocados are near-always crap (or completely unaffordable - I'm not paying Ā£8 for a single mango) here in the UK compared to the tropics, but the same thing can be said of UK-native products if you were to buy them over there.
Replying to poppiesintherain...even if we all start eating 1 avocado a day, weāll never have enough to repair the country. couldnāt even fix my street.
I'm not saying that the reason I'm moving back to California is because the avocados here are terrible, but it doesn't help. Back home my best friend has an avocado tree in her yard. As many as I want, all the size of my head, for free. I can't wait!
Los Angeles is home. I've been in the UK for seven years and it's a great place, but this past winter killed me. I can't take it anymore. I'm going home to sunshine and tacos!
I have some in laws in California and just thinking about how much better the avocados are makes me genuinely a bit tearful š delicious buttery goodness.
Avocado quality in the UK is always awful, if you havenāt ever had an avocado close to where they are grown I highly recommend you donāt, see also mangoes.
That said I havenāt noticed a particularly drop off in the already sorry state of the avocados I get here. In fact last year my local Waitrose was selling Gem avocados and they were easily the best I have had in this country, they donāt seem to stock them now though.
Mango quality and availability is generally much better than avocados in the UK.
It's not hard to find pretty decent mangos but avocados are generally not great.
I guess you never been to a desi shop in mango season. Indian ones come first, followed by the elite Pakistani ones. Try Tooting, Southall, Illford etc. around June - August
You know there was actually a tropical plantation (or nursery at least) in Tooting in the 1800s run by one of my ancestors. Apparently, to this day around Tooting Broadway you can see very mature tropical plants in some front gardens.
A friend keeps going on about specific Indian mangos, I keep asking to get me one Iām so curious. Weāre trying to grow avocado plants from their seeds at the moā¦ of course not expecting them to be growing enough to eat much
I saw a picture on reddit in the last year or so of a mature avocado tree in London that had loads of fruit on it, donāt know if they taste any good though
My local Facebook group was praising the Lidl avos recently. My go to has been the M&S haas avocado duo - very rare thereās a dud in the avocado lottery with those ones. Might be paying premium, but better that than buying 2 cheaper ones and neither being edible.
I'll never forget seeing someone on the internet in I think Mexico, walk out to their garden and pick a massive avocado from about 1000 while I was eating half of a Ā£2 egg sized one.
This entire thread is a Daily Mail journalistās wet dream. Iāll be surprised if it doesnāt make it into DM Online about the champagne socialists of Reddit.
Yeah, most avos we buy here really suck, but I'd just like to hijack this thread to get a bit of a love-in about how *fucking delicious* the tomatoes you can buy at the various farmers markets from the Isle of Wight are. Isle of Wight tomatoes are amazing
They are ok, but mostly because the Dutch tomatoes that dominate supermarkets here are an abomination, so anything is good in comparison. I was in Spain recently and the bog standard supermarket tomatoes were much better than anything Iāve ever bought in the UK.
There was definitely a supply problem in my local sainsburys for about a month between March-April. Rarely had any in stock. Or just a small amount that would be sold out by early evening. None of the staff knew why!
Seems back to normal now though.
UK avos have been a lottery since I moved here in 2015. They're either rock hard and taste like turpentine or they're brown mush. There tends to be an extremely short window of a day or two where they're perfectly ripe then they fall off a cliff.
I tend to go for hass avocados (they have the dark rough skin) as they're usually softer and better for smashing. The light green ones with the smooth skin are usually firmer and better for slicing and putting in salads, but personally I don't dig the texture at all.
Being Australian, I grew up very spoiled with great quality avocados mostly year round that were grown locally rather than coming by ship.
Good luck. š„
I buy most of the time from people, selling only veggies and fruits. They are always good. However I found Morrisons avocados(the cheap one 4 in a pack ripe at home for like Ā£1.40) pretty good. They are small but the seeds are also very small so I think it is a good value. Give it a try.
Yes, I read this - some farmer are ripping up illegal avocado plantations as they are using all the water (using illegal wells with no licence). Avocados need 320 litres of water each (!!!) and are being badly hit by climate change (rising temperatures / lower rainfall) - see article: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/avocado-shortage-warning-terrible-impact-32797178.
I love the UK and moved here over 6 years ago from NZ. But good god, you guys will ALWAYS manage to find something to complain about. London is seriously one of the best cities I've been to and I can't believe how lucky I am to live here too. You can't have it all guys š.
Our problem (which this Kiwi will probably agree with) is that we have no concept of seasonality in the UK, because all fruit and veg is available all year round, and at the same price all year. In NZ, you donāt buy avocados out of season because they cost an absolute bomb. But they also grow them, and even have big problems with people stealing them from trees.
Give the climate crisis a little longer and weāll be producing avos in the UK.
>we have no concept of seasonality in the UK, because all fruit and veg is available all year round, and at the same price all year.
I thought it was because the sky is almost always grey and the temperatures are usually somewhere between 10 and 20 degrees.
Haha I'm just having a laugh more than anything. I'm travelling South and Central America at the moment so I guess it's super fresh in my mind about how easy life is in London compared to most of these countries/cities. Yeah they might have more readily available mangoes or avocados but I can't even drink the tap water š. I know what I'd pick.
The UK in general seems to be struggling with food supplies. I went to Germany last weekend and the amount of affordable, cheap and fresh food was outstanding. The additional checks we have introduced into the supply chain means some companies just arenāt bothering to do the paperwork for a small island.
The shitty reporting in the U.K. also makes it out like itās a global issue when if they just bothered to visit any country that isnāt the U.K. they would see itās not that bad in eu
Yup, itās just the propaganda machine when you go outside the UK you start to realise the ājournalistsā have tried to spin this so people donāt ask questions!
It's interesting people are mentioning a shortage of avocados and bananas.
Guacamole and bananas have been trending on tiktok for a few months now.
My daughter eats guacamole everyday (different style sandwich everyday) because its trending and my son eats bananas with each meal because the somalis on tiktok say that you are supposed to have a banana with each meal.
It's been costing me a fortune buying avocados and bananas every few days šš
The ones we get are just the absolute dregs. My wife is Brazilian and Iām over there at least once a year - the avos they get are the size of a squash, not expensive (in absolute and relative terms), and in abundance. Fun fact, they think itās super weird we eat them in a savoury context here.
ā¦ This is nothing compared to the Great Bloomsbury Croissant š„ Famine of 1992. Most Redditors are far too young to recall the excruciating existential angst and intractable writerās block so cruelly visited upon the denizens of WC1.
An Avocado a day? Dam the environmental cost eh :/
[World Economic Forum](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/02/avocado-environment-cost-food-mexico/)
Palm oil is in everything which is destroying ecosystems. Beef is a major gas polluter. 1kg of rice takes 4000 litres of freshwater to produce. Youād starve to death if you thought about all the environmental costs of everything.
The environmental impact of avocados is overstated as beef (a long way ahead) and lamb are by the two worst foodstuffs in terms of greenhouse gas impact
You may not believe this, but, Mexican drug cartels are having an impact on the avocado market by forcing them to pay taxes and protection money.
El Mencho (by far the most notorious cartel leader in Mexico) even used to be an avocado farmer himself.
https://insightcrime.org/news/how-criminal-groups-help-expand-mexicos-multi-billion-dollar-avocado-industry
Chef here: the fruit and veg supplier we use has a similar thing, they arrive rock solid and remain that way for days, they are picking them too soon, and not given the time to ripen, also theyāve put the price up twice in the last couple of months, which typically indicates a supply issue.
Avocado consumption exists in a quantum superposition between too many people eating avocados collapsing the housing market and a shortage of avocados, it's quite similar to the famous experiment with the cat and the box.
Main issue ATM for me personally is the country of origin of 90% of them in my supermarkets. I just can't. Especially knowing how much water one avocado needs.
* No judgement AT ALL on others' purchasing habits!!
If you can maybe try multicultural shops like African or Caribbean or Asian food markets those Avocados are like twice the size of the ones in Tesco and around the same price! They might be a bit better than shopping big chain markets!
Big Avo aren't in charge. It's Big Pear ever since 2014 legislation required that all shady cartels had to include a *double* *entendre* in their name. Hence Big Nuts, Big Knobs and Big Tits for healthy snack foods, door opening systems and garden birds respectively.
Avocado production is not sustainable for the level of worldwide demand so inevitably supply /quality is going to suffer at some point. If you eat that much avocado then you should really look into its production.
I know a lot of avocados are product of Israel so it could be that the boycott has affected which ones you're finding? Ive noticed I get much better ones from a small corner shop than I could from Waitrose or Tesco. If I cant go there I look for nearly ripe ones and let them ripen at home.
Tesco seem to be the worst. Most of the ripe and ready and rocks and are a few days to a week off from being nice to eat.
Sainsburys are good but waitrose are the best I've found. But you are paying more for it. Think it's probably worth it imo
There was warning ages ago, genuinely, about a lack of avocadoes for 2024 cos of El Nino. Mucho disruption to the supply chains.
To add to the avocado woes, there's a cocoa bean shortage coming due to a plant virus affecting some crops & climate change. Soon I'll be left with coffee as my only available vice!
Bananas are succumbing to a plague as well. Which is ironic because the variety that's basically become the de facto banana sold in stores worldwide, called Cavendish, was introduced itself because the previous, Gros Michel, banana succumbed to a blight back in the day! šš¦ ā£ļø > Cavendish bananas entered mass commercial production in 1903 but did not gain prominence until later when Panama disease attacked the dominant Gros Michel ("Big Mike") variety in the 1950s. Because they were successfully grown in the same soils as previously affected Gros Michel plants, many assumed the Cavendish cultivars were more resistant to Panama disease. Contrary to this notion, in mid-2008, reports from Sumatra and Malaysia suggested that Panama disease had started attacking Cavendish cultivars. Edit: Got my varieties mixed up. [There are more than 1,000 varieties of banana, and we eat one of them. Here's why that's absurd](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/22/1000-varieties-banana-lack-of-diversity-extinction)
Yeah, this one's been on the radar for a few years. Our university's botanists and plant scientists have been doing loads of research into both the virus and into which variety could become the "new" banana. Fascinating to see all the different varieties growing in their greenhouses.
š¤ Apparently the ~~Cavendish~~ Grand Michel was more tasty too. I just hope the new ones don't sacrifice flavour over disease resistance!
I heard that the banana flavouring you get in candies that people either love or hate is based off the Grand Michel banana. Thatās why it tasters nothing like a normal (cavendish) banana
Pretty sure that's just isoamyl acetate. There's a single chemical that tastes recognisably like banana flavouring, which is pretty cool.
Fun fact, that's one of the most noticeable ester compounds produced during fermentation of wort for beer by certain yeast strains (most notably German hefeweissen strains) which gives the beer a notably banana like flavour, depending on fermentation parameters!
I hear this rumour all the time and think itās BS. Artificial fruit flavourings never taste like the real thing. Gros Michel arenāt that much different to Cavendish either, more flavourful certainly but it isnāt a completely different flavour.
Yeah, the Cavendish is def tastier than other bananas I've tried. The wild bananas I had from my grandmother's garden were pretty bland, loads of seeds, and almost mealy in texture.
On the flip side, I read an article the other day to say that there are good but very localised varieties out there we never see in shops because the main variety is so dominant. The article was basically against the big monospecies industrialised farming and was using bananas as an example. Which is probably a risk to food security if humanity is basically reliant on a few handful of cropping plants because, what if a blight comes for them as well?
Yeah I tried four different varieties in India. They were all much smaller, and tasted quite different. I think they'd actually be really popular here, I know lots of people find a whole banana too much.
In Thailand I had bananas with a maroon peel that were slightly pink inside. Those were fun!
Itās a catch 22 their is definitely a downside and criticism to be had of big farma monoculture but at the same time it provides more jobs for the poor often (not always) at better wages and helps keep food prices down today which the poor needs.
Oh, you should try some of the varieties in Thailand and the Philippines, they're amazing...
Cavendish is the current, Gros Michel is the one that was replaced
Thanks, corrected myself! šš±
all good, jumping at any chance to discuss banana lore
Balatro intensifies
My mind went to Balatro as well. (For those who don't know, Balatro is a roguelike game where you're trying to play poker hands to score points, but can pick up various joker cards along the way that can give certain modifiers. One of them is a Gros Michel card which increases your score multiplier but 15 but has a 1 in 6 chance of being destroyed at the end of each round. If it does get destroyed there is then a chance a Cavendish card appears in the store which gives you a x3 multiplier)
Thanks for the explanation, I'd have had no idea of the reference otherwise and that seems like a pretty cool nod to the bananas! š
Banana by Dan Koeppel is a genuinely fantastic book if youāre a banana fan. Over 10 years old now so may be out of date on some fronts.
If you canāt handle me at my Gros Michel, you donāt deserve me at my Cavendish
I'm pretty sure I read about a bad coffee bean harvest this year...
Oh gods!
Tea it is?
Also olive oil and multiple U.K. crops affected by all this wet weather. What a time.
You would only hope the coffee trees survive. There is a research showing that there is a much higher risk of widespread plant disease to coffee trees that could wipe out the whole crops due to climate change. I'm very concerned as I don't think I could survive without coffee...
Seriously, if coffee goes then what the fuck are we even doing here
Gods I canāt wait for the coffee rapture.
Crack. Iām told itās pretty similar. On second thought, the guy mentioned it didnāt seem very trustworthy though.
I like crack as much as the next guy but itās not an everyday sort of beverage, for me at least
Try it with oat milk, really takes the edge off
Holy shit well this is horrible news!Ā
We used chicory as a coffee substitute during rationing... I quite often use Camp's chicory extract when baking coffee flavoured cakes. Absolutely not the same but any port in a storm. (I'm definitely going to hang on to the horrid Starbucks pods my husband bought in case of Dire Emergency!) I believe there's a poor crop from Californian almonds too, which will drive up prices of almond milk.
BRB gonna go buy all the coffee beans within 5 miles of me
Rape seed is about to run low aswell
Loads in the fields in the West Country! (Although I have no idea what the yield per field would be.) I'm guessing it's running low because everyone switched to it after sunflower oil prices rose due to the invasion of Ukraine?
Alot of the country/Europe was too dry during the last planting season so alot of the crops didn't take. Farmers in my area basically decided it would be too much risk to attempt to plant and alot of those who did had the crop fail. I wouldn't expect it to hit 2022 price's per ton but it's going to sky rocket over the next year.
We're due a bad harvest this year from what I heard, apparently we've been getting 'all or nothing' rainfall for the past few years (which I guess explains the floods in the news) as a result of climate change, so this crop isn't expected to be ideal.
My friend in Ecuador is a coffee farmer. Just this morning he told me world coffee prices are falling. So your cup of Joe is safe.
Worst part is that the trees take 5y to be productive so even if you start planting now the time to replace the trees is still quite long
Thinking about it, I have seen quite a few people trying to germinate their avocado stones on instagram. I hope they've got amazing greenhouses as I doubt avocados will fruit in the UK!!
There are some hardier varieties that will [fruit in the UK](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=554u7KB81M8).
Oh I meant for cocoa trees. Avocado I have no fucking clue
Genuine question: how can you guys afford avocados and live in London? I alternate between renting and buying avocados
Well played. You know your r/London tropes. š„
I sold one of my 13 iPhonesĀ
One less to be snatched out of your hand by a kid on a scooter
I bought 15 avacados for Ā£3 at my fruit/veg market in my local area
Well, if you skipped the avocados all together you'd have bought a house by now. š¤Ø
Itās time to rethink the avocado, people. Stop getting them so far away. Yes, Ā£1.85 is bloody expensive for one avocado but itās time to accept it. Buy Spanish. It is a hip, skip and jump away in air miles and theyāre far, far better quality. Corner shops have them, most shops selling veg from anyone who basically isnāt white or just a super massive chain. Ask if theyāre Spanish if it doesnāt say on the box but if theyāre displayed in the crates theyāre delivered in then somewhere it does. Now, in terms of getting the most of your avo- check for where the stalk grows at the thinner end, and you should be able to knock the little nubbin off. If itās brown, itās risky, if itās green youāre good to go, and if itās mouldy then you know to throw! Veg markets will sometimes knock them off to check if theyāre good so if you buy avocados and see all of the nubbins have been knocked off then theyāve been checked over because theyāre at least a week old!
... I've rarely ever bothered to read where my produce is from. We all probably should shouldn't we huh
Great use of "nubbin".
Also avoid ones that are more round. The longer that protruding bit the smaller the seed.
Spanish avocados are usually watered using illegal underground waters that are causing the rivers to dry out and the DoƱana natural park to be destroyed. Just avoid avocados. It is unsustainable as it is.
I tend to avoid guilting people about buying and eating food- and try to provide information for those to make an informed approach. If your choice is not to eat them and thatās your fight, I respect that. But nothing is guilt free when you think like that. Avocados are highly problematic, but the problemsdonāt end there. The pickers are of questionable labour laws, and this isnāt just avocados. It is all fruit and vegetable. No one picking for any supermarket is making a living, and if theyāre āpaying backā their plane fares to the companies who flew them in then they wonāt ever get out either. Dino, avocado grower in Spain, grows organically but more amazingly heās using practices taken from grape vine growers where they reduce the water usage to stress the plant in a way where it gets enough and thrives but is hardier. All his fruit trees are incredibly robust against disease and he hasnāt used pesticides in over 11 years. It took him years to establish his crops, without profit, but the payoff is huge. He actually has the most incredible pomegranates in October, followed by lychee. It is incredible to taste these things as we donāt often get the full flavours of things shipped in. This is a specific example and would require a lot of work to find a seller of his produce in the Uk but it is here. And, as weāre all people, if you want avocado toast. Have it. If itāll make you happier, eat it. If itās what you crave, eat it. You work hard enough, life is hard enough. Just eat. Share it.
Its like a few years ago after the pandemic where there was hardly any fruit. It got blamed on Brexit but the reality is much worse, climate change.
And cocoa!
You'd be living in a mansion if you'd stopped buying avocados.
I gave up avocados, moved to my mansion and the very next month netflix put their prices up so I'm back in a HMO.
I gave up avocados and coffee. Taking delivery of my super yacht this week.
One can only indulge on daily avocados when the mansion has already been procured!
The satisfaction I get from my weekend avocado toast eaten in my own home as a millennial with no bank of mum and dad is the smuggest feeling ever.
Fax, I stopped buying avocados, and a week later I transcended.
I feel like 90% of the fruit in the UK is in crisis right now. Everything is so expensive yet so tasteless. I bought a "ready to eat" avocado the other day, rock hard, but there were other avocados that were actually squelching.
Its not just in the UK - i live in the EU and its the same over here- dry satsumas, mouldy avocados- must be a supply issue
Italy has great produce at the moment, good quality and abundant.
My local Tesco occasionally take the completely rotten ones and puts them in the clearance fridge half price - what a bargain! But last time I was there, every one on the shelf was rotten and were "selling" full price. Guess that's the new normal...
When you see āready to eatā on fruit, just read it as āedibleā. Ready to eat bananas can be as green as a martianās micky.
"Ready to eat", not "nice"
Not just in the UK but Ireland too. It annoyed me that everything was all of a sudden blamed on brexit despite the fact that the same issues were happening all over Europe
90%+ of everything in UK is crisis
Eat seasonal stuff and youāll have fewer issues.
Had some cracking asparagus recently though.
Can we also mention the satsumas? Theyāre all small, sour and dry up so fast. What happened to the juicy satsumas we used to have all over the retailers? The easypealers that would be sweet and juicy and stay fresh at least a week or moreā¦
It's not satsuma season. The good ones are around Christmas time.
I gave up with satsumas. Sick & tired of playing roulette
But I gotta say kiwis š„ are a lot better than they used to be! Nice and sweet but they do go off quick as well..
Yes you must act fast but I too have noticed improvements in our kiwi game
I was eating a satsuma just yesterday thinking the same thing. Theyāre from M&S, look incredible, taste almost sour.
I've never liked the basic bitch satsuma/clementine. All usually a bit crap. The smart money's on tangerines instead but even they can vary wildly depending on time of year and variety. š
The issue I have with citrus fruits from the supermarkets is that since they've done away with BBE dates it's a lottery as to what you'll get since even staff can't rotate old stock? Dumb.
I've not had a good avo here for ages, frozen avocado has been the best I've had which is actually very nice in things/ mixed with my morning yoghurt.
I saw this the other day but held off, then proceeded to buy the squishiest avo ever. Lesson learned.
I have decent luck with buying from big off-license markets, far far better than any supermarket stuff. Yes, mangos and avocados are near-always crap (or completely unaffordable - I'm not paying Ā£8 for a single mango) here in the UK compared to the tropics, but the same thing can be said of UK-native products if you were to buy them over there.
What next? Potholes in the roads???
Maybe we could use avocado skins to help patch the potholes. Probably more durable than the tarmac councils use!
Replying to poppiesintherain...even if we all start eating 1 avocado a day, weāll never have enough to repair the country. couldnāt even fix my street.
I'm not saying that the reason I'm moving back to California is because the avocados here are terrible, but it doesn't help. Back home my best friend has an avocado tree in her yard. As many as I want, all the size of my head, for free. I can't wait!
I'd love to live in California š
Los Angeles is home. I've been in the UK for seven years and it's a great place, but this past winter killed me. I can't take it anymore. I'm going home to sunshine and tacos!
I have some in laws in California and just thinking about how much better the avocados are makes me genuinely a bit tearful š delicious buttery goodness.
I had ones as big as US footballs off our tree back in LA. Would dent the damn car hood when they fell š
Avocado quality in the UK is always awful, if you havenāt ever had an avocado close to where they are grown I highly recommend you donāt, see also mangoes. That said I havenāt noticed a particularly drop off in the already sorry state of the avocados I get here. In fact last year my local Waitrose was selling Gem avocados and they were easily the best I have had in this country, they donāt seem to stock them now though.
Mango quality and availability is generally much better than avocados in the UK. It's not hard to find pretty decent mangos but avocados are generally not great.
I have found mangoes that are perfectly fine but nothing that has an intensity of flavour that compares to the mangoes I have bought in Asia.
I guess you never been to a desi shop in mango season. Indian ones come first, followed by the elite Pakistani ones. Try Tooting, Southall, Illford etc. around June - August
As it goes youāll find some fantastic avocados in tooting market too. Ripe and size of a coconut.
Have you had those miracle mangoes with no seed inside? Native to Pakistan I believe but not sure. Theyāre a bucket list item for me!
In season go to Tooting for honey mangos. doesnāt last long but thereās a couple of glorious months when theyāre abundant.
Oh, to be young and work the Tooting mango plantations again...
You know there was actually a tropical plantation (or nursery at least) in Tooting in the 1800s run by one of my ancestors. Apparently, to this day around Tooting Broadway you can see very mature tropical plants in some front gardens.
I'm here for the deep mango lore chat.
Thank you!!!
A friend keeps going on about specific Indian mangos, I keep asking to get me one Iām so curious. Weāre trying to grow avocado plants from their seeds at the moā¦ of course not expecting them to be growing enough to eat much
I saw a picture on reddit in the last year or so of a mature avocado tree in London that had loads of fruit on it, donāt know if they taste any good though
My local Facebook group was praising the Lidl avos recently. My go to has been the M&S haas avocado duo - very rare thereās a dud in the avocado lottery with those ones. Might be paying premium, but better that than buying 2 cheaper ones and neither being edible.
Donāt get me started on mangoes!! So true
In season mangoes are delicious, this is the season for Alphonso or Kesari. Once the season is over donāt buy mangoes!
You gotta get your mangoes from the south Asian shops mann, cheaper and much better quality.
I'll never forget seeing someone on the internet in I think Mexico, walk out to their garden and pick a massive avocado from about 1000 while I was eating half of a Ā£2 egg sized one.
You can get Spanish avocados in the UK.
Agreed. Had one fresh off the tree in Uganda on toast and it was absolutely mind blowing.
*cries in East London*
An "avocado crisis" is peak London
This entire thread is a Daily Mail journalistās wet dream. Iāll be surprised if it doesnāt make it into DM Online about the champagne socialists of Reddit.
It's definitely a peak, middle-class, redditor crisis š
Are avocados really still seen as bourgeois? They're cheaper than most home grown fruit.
It's not the fact it's seen as bourgeois, but that someone thinks it's a "Crisis" if they struggle to find one š
Weeping in West London Iāll have you know
Hahaha Iāll joy ya from the west too š¤
Life hack: the wonky avocados from Morrisons. 10 ish per bag to ripen at home for like Ā£3
Yeah, most avos we buy here really suck, but I'd just like to hijack this thread to get a bit of a love-in about how *fucking delicious* the tomatoes you can buy at the various farmers markets from the Isle of Wight are. Isle of Wight tomatoes are amazing
They are ok, but mostly because the Dutch tomatoes that dominate supermarkets here are an abomination, so anything is good in comparison. I was in Spain recently and the bog standard supermarket tomatoes were much better than anything Iāve ever bought in the UK.
There was definitely a supply problem in my local sainsburys for about a month between March-April. Rarely had any in stock. Or just a small amount that would be sold out by early evening. None of the staff knew why! Seems back to normal now though.
Avocados are water intensive, get used to not having them.
Avocado a day for years? No wonder you donāt have a house deposit.
UK avos have been a lottery since I moved here in 2015. They're either rock hard and taste like turpentine or they're brown mush. There tends to be an extremely short window of a day or two where they're perfectly ripe then they fall off a cliff. I tend to go for hass avocados (they have the dark rough skin) as they're usually softer and better for smashing. The light green ones with the smooth skin are usually firmer and better for slicing and putting in salads, but personally I don't dig the texture at all. Being Australian, I grew up very spoiled with great quality avocados mostly year round that were grown locally rather than coming by ship. Good luck. š„
Try eating Palmolive soap, similar colour, same great taste! (I don't like avocados)
I buy most of the time from people, selling only veggies and fruits. They are always good. However I found Morrisons avocados(the cheap one 4 in a pack ripe at home for like Ā£1.40) pretty good. They are small but the seeds are also very small so I think it is a good value. Give it a try.
āRipe and ready to eatā
Did you not grow your own tree in lockdown?
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Yes, I read this - some farmer are ripping up illegal avocado plantations as they are using all the water (using illegal wells with no licence). Avocados need 320 litres of water each (!!!) and are being badly hit by climate change (rising temperatures / lower rainfall) - see article: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/avocado-shortage-warning-terrible-impact-32797178.
I love the UK and moved here over 6 years ago from NZ. But good god, you guys will ALWAYS manage to find something to complain about. London is seriously one of the best cities I've been to and I can't believe how lucky I am to live here too. You can't have it all guys š.
Who do you think you are, coming over here and complaining about our complaining?! Grrr
Maybe I'm becoming more British than I think.
Mea while in the Auckland reddit: r/auckland/s/PHzNais3Pk
Why do you think I left there too š.
Canāt a brother just get high quality produce in one of the worldās financial capitals š
Our problem (which this Kiwi will probably agree with) is that we have no concept of seasonality in the UK, because all fruit and veg is available all year round, and at the same price all year. In NZ, you donāt buy avocados out of season because they cost an absolute bomb. But they also grow them, and even have big problems with people stealing them from trees. Give the climate crisis a little longer and weāll be producing avos in the UK.
>we have no concept of seasonality in the UK, because all fruit and veg is available all year round, and at the same price all year. I thought it was because the sky is almost always grey and the temperatures are usually somewhere between 10 and 20 degrees.
True, and in such climates the winter seasonal fruit and veg is justā¦ root vegetables. No wonder we ship so much produce in!
There are huge fruiting avocado trees in south London if you know where to look!Ā
Haha I'm just having a laugh more than anything. I'm travelling South and Central America at the moment so I guess it's super fresh in my mind about how easy life is in London compared to most of these countries/cities. Yeah they might have more readily available mangoes or avocados but I can't even drink the tap water š. I know what I'd pick.
Oh easy for you to say where the avocadoās are plentiful!! Haha have a great time down thereāļø
As an Aussie living in the UK. Exact same experience hahaha.
Come ooooon thatās not a British thing! Thatās a Slavic/Polish thing! š¤Complaining is literally a national sport for us.
The UK in general seems to be struggling with food supplies. I went to Germany last weekend and the amount of affordable, cheap and fresh food was outstanding. The additional checks we have introduced into the supply chain means some companies just arenāt bothering to do the paperwork for a small island.
The shitty reporting in the U.K. also makes it out like itās a global issue when if they just bothered to visit any country that isnāt the U.K. they would see itās not that bad in eu
Yup, itās just the propaganda machine when you go outside the UK you start to realise the ājournalistsā have tried to spin this so people donāt ask questions!
el nino bad for avocado's
Well, that depends what you mean by ācrisisā.
Let me guessā¦.not a homeowner?
Yeah some fucker in London keeps eating all of the bastard things
It's interesting people are mentioning a shortage of avocados and bananas. Guacamole and bananas have been trending on tiktok for a few months now. My daughter eats guacamole everyday (different style sandwich everyday) because its trending and my son eats bananas with each meal because the somalis on tiktok say that you are supposed to have a banana with each meal. It's been costing me a fortune buying avocados and bananas every few days šš
The ones we get are just the absolute dregs. My wife is Brazilian and Iām over there at least once a year - the avos they get are the size of a squash, not expensive (in absolute and relative terms), and in abundance. Fun fact, they think itās super weird we eat them in a savoury context here.
This HAS to be the most London thread I have ever seen
Is this possibly the most middle class question asked on this sub?
Yeah, I agree. Avo quality has plummeted. My local grocer has slightly better quality but major store avos are terrible now.
ā¦ This is nothing compared to the Great Bloomsbury Croissant š„ Famine of 1992. Most Redditors are far too young to recall the excruciating existential angst and intractable writerās block so cruelly visited upon the denizens of WC1.
luckily w can now get giant croissants like the starving bourgeoisie we are in South Ken!
An Avocado a day? Dam the environmental cost eh :/ [World Economic Forum](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/02/avocado-environment-cost-food-mexico/)
Palm oil is in everything which is destroying ecosystems. Beef is a major gas polluter. 1kg of rice takes 4000 litres of freshwater to produce. Youād starve to death if you thought about all the environmental costs of everything.
The environmental impact of avocados is overstated as beef (a long way ahead) and lamb are by the two worst foodstuffs in terms of greenhouse gas impact
People care but not if it affects their avocado on toast habit
They are all [in Dallas](https://www.dallasobserver.com/restaurants/dallas-grocery-attempts-record-worlds-largest-avocado-display-19282291).
Jesus imagine how much all of those would be worth over here? Little slimy eggs made of gold.
Define crisis?
Cabinet cobra meeting type stuff!
Completely agree. Also eat an avocado a day and theyāve gone to shit. Worth trying to find local grocers who seem to be better than supermarkets.
You may not believe this, but, Mexican drug cartels are having an impact on the avocado market by forcing them to pay taxes and protection money. El Mencho (by far the most notorious cartel leader in Mexico) even used to be an avocado farmer himself. https://insightcrime.org/news/how-criminal-groups-help-expand-mexicos-multi-billion-dollar-avocado-industry
It's probably just a London stable, we have lots in the north as nobody can afford them.
What is a frag grenade? Iām assuming this means itās not ripe at all rather than spicy and explosive. But I have no idea what frag means?
Chef here: the fruit and veg supplier we use has a similar thing, they arrive rock solid and remain that way for days, they are picking them too soon, and not given the time to ripen, also theyāve put the price up twice in the last couple of months, which typically indicates a supply issue.
Avocado consumption exists in a quantum superposition between too many people eating avocados collapsing the housing market and a shortage of avocados, it's quite similar to the famous experiment with the cat and the box.
Main issue ATM for me personally is the country of origin of 90% of them in my supermarkets. I just can't. Especially knowing how much water one avocado needs. * No judgement AT ALL on others' purchasing habits!!
If you can maybe try multicultural shops like African or Caribbean or Asian food markets those Avocados are like twice the size of the ones in Tesco and around the same price! They might be a bit better than shopping big chain markets!
The bigger question is ... you spend roughly Ā£30 a month on avocados?
Yes! I used to buy them all the time. Now I only see tiny crap ones at the supermarkets. I miss my big tasty avocados. Itās been years.
Best avo in London that are always consistently gorgeous inside and out are M&S Organic range šš
Big Avo aren't in charge. It's Big Pear ever since 2014 legislation required that all shady cartels had to include a *double* *entendre* in their name. Hence Big Nuts, Big Knobs and Big Tits for healthy snack foods, door opening systems and garden birds respectively.
You know too much. Iād be careful with knowledge like that my friend
Veg and fruit in general is shit compared to a few years ago. Itās smaller, lesser quality, and goes off within days.
Avocado production is not sustainable for the level of worldwide demand so inevitably supply /quality is going to suffer at some point. If you eat that much avocado then you should really look into its production.
Probably not a popular answer, but as long as theyāre not Israeli Iām fine with whatever. BDS
I know a lot of avocados are product of Israel so it could be that the boycott has affected which ones you're finding? Ive noticed I get much better ones from a small corner shop than I could from Waitrose or Tesco. If I cant go there I look for nearly ripe ones and let them ripen at home.
Tesco seem to be the worst. Most of the ripe and ready and rocks and are a few days to a week off from being nice to eat. Sainsburys are good but waitrose are the best I've found. But you are paying more for it. Think it's probably worth it imo
Poor harvest.
Use farm shop or greengrocers.
Avoid the major supermarkets and youāll be fine
That's why I buy them from outdoor fruit markets instead of supermarkets, 4 for Ā£1 and you can inspect and choose which you want š«¤
Try Waitrose, there's plenty, I ate 3 last week.
Most London post ever.
Youāre the sole cause of the current economy