Where do we stand on...

easy-peel avocados

Avocados have been in for some bad press recently. Millennials, we are told, cannot afford to get on the housing ladder because they’re spending too much on Sunday morning brunch, with the delicious green fruit blamed as a particular moneysucking culprit.

Now, the generation born between 1980 and 2000 will have even less money to save, as Tesco releases a new “easy peel” avocado, which costs £1.85 (versus 85p for the Luddite version). The Easy Avo, grown in South Africa, has thicker skin, which comes away easily after the fruit is cut in half.

Such laziness, you might think – can it be worth spending an extra £1 to save yourself two minutes of peeling? Yet the Easy Avo is not just a timesaver, Tesco says, but a potential paw-protector from “avocadohand”, dubbed “the most middle-class injury ever”.

Plastic surgeon Simon Eccles says he treats four patients for the wound each week at his west London hospital, and believes the fruit should come with a health and safety warning. Perhaps it’s a no-brainer: if avocado-lovers are risking injury every time they eat one, why wouldn’t they want to circumnavigate the peeling process entirely? But it’s a sorry state of affairs, surely, if we can’t trust adults to chop up their own dinner. All cooking carries a small degree of risk, with peeling, dicing and mashing all part of the joy of preparing a meal. We all long for convenience, Tesco, but we still need something to do in the kitchen. What’s next? Pre-peeled bananas? Onions genetically engineered to prevent you from crying? Pre-cooked meals that you just need to stick in the microwave? Oh, hang on…