Avocado Seed Reuse

Good morning All:

I did a search in Permies.com to see if there has been any interest in the surplus products of consuming avocados. The skin and large seed generally are not used either in home food use or on the larger industrial scale. In fact one article reported that in areas where avocados are grown and managed for commercial use the seeds pose a significant environmental waste and pollution problem. One article from the U.S. National Institutes of Health talks of the many beneficial biological characteristics of avocado seeds. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9789361/  I have been putting the seeds and skins directly in the garden as I do now pretty much with all plant based waste from food preparation and garden cleaning. While the skins dry out readily in the sun and are easily crumbled by hand after a couple of weeks the seeds are pretty durable and take a while to break down.

My family ends up with a surplus of avocado seeds (and skins) because we purchase and use around eight avocados a week. Avocados have been identified as a good source of nutrients and effects for better health. In food preparation we use the soft, light green inner material which leaves the skin and large hard seed as surplus organic material. The article identified in the first paragraph lists significant good characteristics of avocado seeds and it sounds like there are an abundance of them as surplus and that they can be problematic as they have been treated as a waste product.

I plan on continuing to use the surplus seeds and skins in the garden to break down and help amend the soil. I do plan to find ways to help them break down like chopping or grinding them up but I would ask for some suggestions on a couple of areas related to surplus avocado seeds and skins related to reuse and or composting.

1. What other ways have you used avocado seeds and skins at home, in the garden or in other useful ways?

2. What are some ideas to reduce or break down the seeds to a more useable material. Better ways to chop, grind or crush?

Your thoughts and comments are appreciated.

Mike Love
Central Maryland, USA

You can apparently press oil out of the skins and use the seeds for enchilada sauce and fabric dye.

I feel like almost everyone has had an avocado plant growing in their home at one time or another.

https://permies.com/t/210564/avocado-house-plant

I have also read that the seed can be ground up and added to guacamole to make it last longer.  I have not tried this so I don't know if it last longer.

I have also read about making a facial mask with the ground seeds.

I bet that the ground seeds would make a good dye for folks into textiles.

Here is an article about the health benefits from the oil from the seeds:

Avocado seeds are rich in polysaccharides, proteins, lipids, vitamins, minerals, and other bioactive substances.

Avocado-seed extracts also have many health-related bioactive properties, such as anti-hyperglycaemic, anticancer, anti-hypercholesterolemia, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-neurogenerative effects are clearly demonstrated how these properties can be used to formulate or fortify food.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9789361/

I would love to hear of other folks that have found uses for avocado seeds and or as houseplants.

Anne Miller wrote: Here is an article about the health benefits from the oil from the seeds

A couple years ago a member here in Permies was posting photos of examples of his unique wood raised bed work in gardens and the the wood had an amazing green/yellow look to it. I asked him what he used to stain the wood and he said Avocado Oil. He was in California where there was an extraordinary supply of low cost avocado oil due to being at the center of the industry. He applied the oil like you would tung of linseed oil to preserve  the wood. It appears that there is increasing use for avocado oil in a similar fashion to olive oil, as a healthy alternative oil in diet and cooking. I never would have thought of it as a preservative but why not?

Mike Love
Central Maryland USA

1. You can sit in a jar with water touching bottom half and sprout and then plant.
2. You can sit on window shelf and let dry out (or put in dehydrator). Crush up into powder and put in capsules and use for food, medicine.
3. Avocados are one of the very best fats your body needs. Your brain is almost entirely made up of fat, so it is a brain food.
All I use them for now.

Worms love the skin and seeds! They do great in the bin..

My daughter and i learned from others to use the avocado seeds to make fountain pen ink and water color paint, in learning how to do this we've learned from others that the inner avocado seeds are edible and can be used to make a tea.

I used to add the whole avocados seed to my smoothie with a high speed blender.  I've gotten it off the habit of doing that, but this has inspired me to continue.

I also set the seeds in a pot and let sprout slowly, you can use that base to great on proper avocado yes that may flower and at see in your area.  At the moment, the pains keep digging then up and chewing off bits, but i have hope still

Melody Glazer wrote:My daughter and i learned from others to use the avocado seeds to make fountain pen ink and water color paint, in learning how to do this we've learned from others that the inner avocado seeds are edible and can be used to make a tea.

Could you post a recipe for the ink please?

The skins will crumble in time, as you stated. For the stones, they can be dried a bit and then painted to look like an egg. Chickens sometimes need inspiration. Drop one in each egg box. They'll be inspired. Easter decorations? Plumb bob.
Now, if you have that many could they be burned and the ashes used on asparagus?
As I was racking my brains to think of more ideas, I thought: "I bet someone has thought about using the skin and stone before me". Sure enough:
https://www.oddbox.co.uk/blog/6-genius-ways-to-use-your-avocado-seed-peel

Your probably not far enough south, but why not plant them and grow your own avocado trees. I toss mine in my compost. Boy, I had a big surprise a couple of months ago when I was out turning the pile. I found I had three or four avocado trees starting to grow. I knew they were avocado trees since the one I pulled up was still directly attached to the seed. Now if I just didn't live in the northeast. Maybe that is why I say "I want global warming, I want global warming:)" I can't grow much of anything around my place, other than berries, but I sure can grow avocados, at least for one summer:)

My sister, who has a Vitamix (powerful) blender, blends avocado seeds into her smoothies. She thinks they are the greatest addition. She cuts them first with a big kitchen knife, to help them blend more quickly.
I haven't tried this yet, but we just brought home a Vitamix so I will have a go the next time we eat an avocado.

The whole seeds could be an interesting textured mulch in your garden if you have enough of them.  😊

I used to get buckets full of golf balls in my irrigation water.  I used them for mulch.  The white color of the golf balls reflected light up to the plants.  The only avocado seeds I have ever seen are a light color under the peel.

While that NIH article lists interesting phytochemical components in the avocado pit, I've only seen one source that states it's actually good to eat - Jeff Primack's website (https://jeffprimack.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/specific-foods-reverse-specific-diseases/).  Primack is a martial arts teacher who has moved into the new age/nutritional arena with his book, "Conquering Any Disease".  One other website advocates doing this (https://seetucsonhomes.com/healthier-you/avocado-seeds-amazing-superfood/), but only offers empirical evidence from their personal experience.  The NIH article does make it clear that there's a lot of potential goodies avocado pits might be, specifically some cancer fighting compounds that could be extracted from them.

I've seen Jeff Primack in person where he made smoothies with avocado pits, and I don't disagree that they can be eaten...but should they?  Seeds usually have protective chemicals that discourage digestion (phytates and tannins) and some can be removed with soaking, but without a better understanding of those chemicals (or at least some in-depth scientific analysis), I might skip on eating them regularly.  And at the very least, you're gonna need a kickass blender like a Vitamix or a Blendtec.

Worms clean them up in the worm bin, then I pyrolize them into charcoal, then scatter them into the deep litter of the chicken run and goat run to inoculate them into biochar.  The deep litter gets put into the garden beds in the spring.

Jennifer Jennings wrote:
I've seen Jeff Primack in person where he made smoothies with avocado pits, and I don't disagree that they can be eaten...but should they?  .

I would not eat them. The German Central Authority for Consumer Information (Verbraucherzentrale) has an article about the toxicity from cyanide which forms from the contained amygdalin.
Powders made from avocado seeds may not be sold in Germany. The toxicity is even higher for pets and other mammals like mice (apparently in Mexico it is mixed with tallow as rodent poison).

The article summarizes the current findings - in Geman. You can either switch your Google to English and scroll to the bottom to the linked articles which are partly in English.
Avacoda seeds for human consumption?

As to the health benefits in smoothies etc., it looks like all those influencers and youtubers just copy from one another.

Hank Fletcher wrote:Your probably not far enough south, but why not plant them and grow your own avocado trees. I toss mine in my compost. Boy, I had a big surprise a couple of months ago when I was out turning the pile. I found I had three or four avocado trees starting to grow. I knew they were avocado trees since the one I pulled up was still directly attached to the seed.

You can grow out avocados in pots.  We have minus 5 to 45 deg C.  Once the tree is 3 or more years old, then you can plant them out.  Before the first frost, cover the tree with some insulation such as wool or roof bats.  Cover the top  but remember to remove the top cover when the sun is up.  Hot water bottles or heated rocks will raise the ground temperature.  Once the tree has sufficient girth, it should survive the cold.  There are even cold tolerant varieties.

Unfortunately, I forgot to water my pots so they went to the great garden in the sky.

Avocado skins and seeds can be used to dye fiber in the pink-peach-pinky brown range. According to the second link below, the dye, when mordanted and rinsed, is very colorfast. I have been saving seeds and skins for a while, but have not yet tried dyeing. I plan to try it on wool yarn and cotton fabric. the results I have seen online are attractive. The problem is that you will still have waste after, waste that shouldn't be composted for a food garden if a toxic mordant is used.

https://thebarefootdyer.com/natural-dyeing-with-avocados/
https://fibercurious.com/avocado-natural-dye/

once you have that small avocado tree going, the leaves make a nice herb tea, and can be used as a seasoning with beans (throw a few in the cooking pot). http://flavorsofthesun.blogspot.com/2008/02/avocado-leaves-secret-mexican.html

supposedly the tea is good for blood pressure, but I haven't investigated that in more detail. i just think it tastes good (in the summer I drink all kinds of iced herb tea)

Paul Fookes wrote:

Hank Fletcher wrote:Your probably not far enough south, but why not plant them and grow your own avocado trees. I toss mine in my compost. Boy, I had a big surprise a couple of months ago when I was out turning the pile. I found I had three or four avocado trees starting to grow. I knew they were avocado trees since the one I pulled up was still directly attached to the seed.

You can grow out avocados in pots.  We have minus 5 to 45 deg C.  Once the tree is 3 or more years old, then you can plant them out.  Before the first frost, cover the tree with some insulation such as wool or roof bats.  Cover the top  but remember to remove the top cover when the sun is up.  Hot water bottles or heated rocks will raise the ground temperature.  Once the tree has sufficient girth, it should survive the cold.  There are even cold tolerant varieties.

Unfortunately, I forgot to water my pots so they went to the great garden in the sky.

Yes, they will grow, at least one year until winter arrives. Let's see, last night I saw 19F, and winter doesn't start for another month.  I know the ones that started won't survive, darn. I do wish they would go in hibernation and then take back off next summer. I wouldn't mind not being able to get them to continue to grow while never fruiting. With the temps around here that won't happen.

I save, dry, and carve them. They are great to carve as they have no grain like wood does and take detail well

Scott Holbrook wrote: 2. You can sit on window shelf and let dry out (or put in dehydrator). Crush up into powder and put in capsules and use for food, medicine. 3. Avocados are one of the very best fats your body needs. Your brain is almost entirely made up of fat, so it is a brain food.
All I use them for now.

This is an interesting direction. I also wonder how it does as a fat, say in baked goods?

Mike Love

Joseph Becker wrote:I save, dry, and carve them. They are great to carve as they have no grain like wood does and take detail well

I like the idea!  Are they tough enough to make into buttons and beads?

If i wanted buttons would I carve them before they dry?  Then sand them after they’ve dried?

Please look up the toxin persin (spelling?) in Avocados. Avocados are on the no-no list for guinea pigs and birds. There is not a tradition of eating the pits in the geographic area of origin, for good reason. People get away with the flesh because of our larger body size. I love avocados, but I would not eat any version of the pits

I've been making some avocado pit buttons. It's been a fun little journey. They look neat and I'm hoping to use a few on a pancho for some securement. Might do a little pryomancey on them for decoration. Maybe sell a few at the Farmar.

The failed buttons are going into the rest of the dried skins to also try some dying or ink making from that process. We don't eat so many. I've been saving the few that come my way.

The pits are surprisingly easy to cut through. I'm not a carver, but there are some cute carved ones for necklaces (or a big bead).

Caryn Macdonald wrote:Avocado skins and seeds can be used to dye fiber in the pink-peach-pinky brown range. According to the second link below, the dye, when mordanted and rinsed, is very colorfast. I have been saving seeds and skins for a while, but have not yet tried dyeing. I plan to try it on wool yarn and cotton fabric. the results I have seen online are attractive. The problem is that you will still have waste after, waste that shouldn't be composted for a food garden if a toxic mordant is used.

https://thebarefootdyer.com/natural-dyeing-with-avocados/
https://fibercurious.com/avocado-natural-dye/

I've been splitting them up at their .... natural split? Then slicing kinda thick coins (but also enough left to nubbin end to make a smaller button) to sand down for smoothness and desired thickness.

Too thin and they can't take sanding or drilling a hole when dry. Putting a hole in the slices while they were wet was a guaranteed broken button for me. Trying to cut them as a whole pit coin were also guaranteed broken buttons too as the natural split of pit, they bust apart after drying/during, but look cute as dried half moons too!

Thekla McDaniels wrote:

Joseph Becker wrote:I save, dry, and carve them. They are great to carve as they have no grain like wood does and take detail well

I like the idea!  Are they tough enough to make into buttons and beads?

If i wanted buttons would I carve them before they dry?  Then sand them after they’ve dried?

If I had a surplus of seeds I would be interested in extracting the oil.
With the leftovers I would make biochar.
As is, they are expensive where I live,so ww dont buy very many.
What waste we have just goes to the chickens.