Joy Behar Rushed to the ER After Trying to Slice an Avocado
Daytime television host Joy Behar learned a very valuable kitchen lesson the hard way after she was rushed to the emergency room, missing one filming of ABC's The View, earlier last week. As she explained on her show, she was attempting to prepare an avocado for a quick snack, she decided to plunge a knife into the avocado's pit, which she was holding in another hand—which then ran through the entire avocado and straight into her palm.
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It sounds painful enough—but adding insult to injury, Behar had to spend an entire night in the emergency room where she was put on an antibacterial drip to fight off any chances of infection.
Behar's doctors told the 75-year-old that many, many people—even other celebrities, like Meryl Streep—have made the same mistake of incorrectly preparing an avocado before.
“Apparently there is a syndrome called avocado hand,” she says on today's episode of The View. “It’s real! The doctor said, ‘We get this all the time.’ And bagels also. Any time you’re holding the item, and you cut it, you can get this.”
The ladies who host the show alongside Behar ended up handing her an avocado slicer and a protective glove, but they failed to point out that choosing to spear an avocado pit is probably the least safe method of enjoying the fleshy green fruit.
At Cooking Light, we suggest you place the halved avocado on a sturdy surface and remove the pit by striking it with a chef's knife blade. Then you can easily turn the knife, and twist the pit out. If you hold the avocado while doing this, there's a chance that the blade can slip and, in Behar's case, pass through the whole fruit and into your palm directly.
For step-by-step instructions on preparing avocados like a pro, click here.