As if 2017 wasn’t full of enough horrors already, avocado prices have been rising steadily all this year, reaching record highs earlier this month. That’s due to increased demand from food lovers worldwide, prompting finger-wagging lectures like this one about how millennials can’t afford to buy homes because of avocado toast, not because of crippling student debt and a lack of stable employment in the gig economy. And not only are these foodie youths pissing away their retirement on crusty bread and potassium-rich fruits, they can’t even cut the damn things right.
That’s from a report in The Times citing the rise of so-called “avocado hand,” stab and slash wounds sustained by amateur avocado-loving chefs who fail to account for their tough skin and slippery inside while cutting them. Emergency rooms are even reporting a “post-brunch surge” of hand injuries on Saturday afternoons, some of which are severe enough to cause permanent nerve damage and/or require reconstructive surgery. It’s not just young people with limited cooking experience, either: No less of a worldly sophisticate than Meryl Streep fell victim to the Judas fruit back in 2012.
As a result, doctors are now suggesting warning labels on avocados. “We don’t want to put people off the fruit, but I think warning labels are an effective way of dealing with this,” British plastic surgeon Simon Eccles says. ”It needs to be recognizable. Perhaps we could have a cartoon picture of an avocado with a knife, and a big red cross going through it?”
So you see, smug Australian property tycoons, millennials aren’t buying avocado toast at restaurants because they’re financially irresponsible. They’re just putting safety first.