"To ripen avocados faster than you can say "guacamole," place the unripe fruit in a brown paper bag filled with a cup or two of flour. The paper bag trick is a tale as old as time, a long-known method of trapping the ethylene gas that avocados emit and using it to speed up ripening, but adding flour means that any excess moisture is going to be wicked up before it"
"Avocados fall into the climacteric category of fruits, which means they ripen after they've been harvested, not while they grow on the tree. According to research from the University of Maryland, the ripening process of climacteric fruits begins when an "initial concentration of ethylene causes an increase in production of ethylene." If trapped in a paper bag, the ethylene gases have nowhere to go and essentially force the avocado to ripen faster, though too much interaction with the gas could cause the fruit to brown."
Unripe avocados ripen faster when placed in a sealed brown paper bag because the bag traps ethylene gas produced by the fruit. Adding a cup or two of flour absorbs excess moisture and holds ethylene closer to the avocado, concentrating the gas and accelerating ripening while reducing moisture-related issues. Adding a banana to the bag raises ethylene levels further and can speed ripening even more. Avocados are climacteric fruits that ripen after harvest when ethylene triggers increased ethylene production. The technique requires a tightly sealed paper bag; plastic bags do not function the same.
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