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Comment by b2w | Hacker News Reader

I learned from a chef a while back to apply a thin layer of lemon juice to the smooth face of the avocado to prevent it from browning quickly.

I can usually pick a good hass based off skin tone and feel from the palm of hand if the skin is just beginning to pull away from the face when most ripe.

I tend to store it in the fridge to prolong its ripened state.

They are a daily use in my household for adding calories while more closely preserving the Keto ratio.

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This is what I was looking for, in the article as well as comments. Lemon juice has also worked for me, especially in combination with the sealed plastic wrap, but I was not scientific about it and was hoping for some mention of testing this in the article!

The ascorbic acid in lemon juice is doing the work here. If you’d like read up on the science as to why it works the terms you need are polyphenol oxidase, which are the enzymes primarily responsible for browning in fruit and veg. Then also look into the Fenton chain reaction and how’s it’s interfered by ascorbic acid binding to quinones. It’ll probably be easier to find this if you focus on wine science, more so than fruit and veg in general.

I use lemon juice. It works, inasmuch as anything works.

I mainly use avocados to make guacamole, and my recipe includes lemon juice. If there's half an avocado left over, I splash lemon juice on, then wrap it in plastic film and refrigerate it.

I do this as well, and also with guacamole I’m going to hold, after putting it in a container I’ll smooth the surface, squeeze lemon/lime juice on top and press plastic wrap down onto it to keep a film of juice on the surface. Keeps it from browning and adds to the flavor for next time, when you can just stir it in.

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