When it comes to choosing healthy fats for your child, avocados are a perfect match. From one of baby’s first foods to the whole family’s Meatless Monday or vegetarian diet, this protein packs a list of health benefits:
- Fiber
- Potassium (more than twice the amount found in a banana)
- Vitamin E
- B-vitamins
- Folic acid
Grow Your Own Avocado Plant
The next time you slice an avocado for a salad or make guacamole, save the pit and use it to grow an avocado plant. The Avocado Diva shares this simple and fun learning experience the kids can enjoy. You’ll need…
- glass or jar
- 4 toothpicks
- 1 avocado pit
Wash the avocado pit. Take the toothpicks and firmly poke them into the pit in a circle around it’s middle. Fill the glass with water and suspend the pit so the bottom sits in water. The bottom of the pit is the “fattest” side. The pointy part is the top. The top should sit above the rim of the glass.
Now place the jar and pit in a bright, sunny spot and watch it grow. In about 4 – 5 weeks it will grow long, white roots out of the bottom and into the water. The top will split and grow a single, long sprout with 2 green leaves.
Here are a few tips to help ensure your pit will sprout:
1. Wait until the avocado has gone really, really ripe to open it. If you can bear it – let it go too ripe. Sometimes the pit will even split and/or start a root inside the avocado! These are best to use.
2.Try growing a “heritage” avocado – (e.g. – a non-Hass variety)
3. Use a sharp, clean knife and cut away some of the brown skin on the bottom of the pit – to help it start to root.
4. Use filtered water or leave the water out overnight to dissipate most of the chlorine.
5. Keep the jar filled so that the bottom of the pit is always in water.
6. Don’t let your pit experience huge fluctuations in temperature. Avocados are a tropical fruit – so they like a warm, consistent temperature.
To grow a houseplant, you need to transfer the roots, pit and stalk to a pot with lots of organic soil and rocks on the bottom. It must drain very well, as avocados do not like mushy soil. Once your plant grows a nice, tall stalk – (about 8-10 leaves and a foot tall) – you can pinch off the top so it will stay smaller and fuller.
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