You’ll need to cut this part from the guacamole recipe.
Cutting avocados accounts for about 1 in every 50 knife injuries in America, in response to a recent study published within the American Journal of Health Behavior.
“It’s shocking what number of ER department visits are related to avocado hand-cutting injuries,” Matthew E. Rossheim, the lead creator of the study and an associate professor within the School of Public Health on the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Price, told The Washington Post.
Women between the ages of 23 and 39 are the more than likely to get injured this fashion, the study found.
The injury can also be more than likely to occur to the left hand on weekends from April through July, the research showed, as you’re using your right hand to chop into the sought-after superfood to make a bowl of guacamole in your outdoor BBQ.
“Of people that cut tendons and nerves of their hands, we normally guess that it’s an avocado injury,” Dr. Scott Wolfe, Hospital for Special Surgery hand and upper extremity surgeon, told CBS Recent York.
“It’s so common I might say that nine out of 10 are avocado injuries.”
To avoid this shockingly common laceration, experts warn those within the kitchen to aim the sharp fringe of a knife — or the purpose of the knife — away out of your hand.
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Wolfe recommends holding the avocado down on a cutting board along with your less dexterous hand and slicing into the fruit along with your dominant hand, cutting throughout the fruit on the equator, then rolling it halfway over and cutting it again.
“The hand is an incredibly complex organ with plenty of tendons and nerves in a really small space,” Dr. Wolfe said. “It’s very easy to do a variety of damage there.”
The recent study from the University of North Texas found that about half of the individuals who wounded themselves reported injuries to their palms, while the opposite half cut their fingers — mostly their index finger (34 percent of cases), followed by their thumb (19 percent of cases) or ring finger (17 percent of cases).
In some cases, it could actually be even worse than an easy cut.
“I’ve treated individuals who’ve cut off a finger while slicing an avocado,” said Eric Wagner, a hand surgeon and associate professor of orthopedic surgery at Emory University in Atlanta, told WaPo.
“Cutting an avocado seems so harmless, but we’ve seen some pretty bad injuries from it. By far and away essentially the most injuries I’ve seen are from avocado injuries.”