You're at the grocery store, and you want to buy an avocado.
How can you tell whether they're perfectly ripe and delicious, and not bitter or overripe?
America's Test Kitchen chef and food-science expert Dan Souza told Tech Insider that picking the best avocados was surprisingly easy.
"Your best bet with avocados is to give them a gentle squeeze," Souza said, "to see if they're ripe and ready to be used that day."
You want them to have some give without being totally mushy.
The color of the skin also provides a clue; it should be dark but not recessed or separated from the flesh:
If you don't plan on eating them that day or the next, pick an avocado that's a little firmer.
But one thing you unfortunately can't tell without cutting it open, Souza said, is whether the avocado will have those brown spots inside.
"A lot of that has to do with how they're handled during shipping, and it's not visible on the outside," he said. "So unfortunately there's not a really good way to pick that. It's a total bummer. And they are expensive, so it's a little bit tricky."