Opinion: Feijoas ... is there a right and wrong way to eat them?

My world was rocked this week when I discovered that a colleague – someone I trust, someone I respect – eats feijoas like an absolute psychopath.

She peels them. PEELS THEM. And while I don't believe she is in the majority, she is not alone in this practice.

It's wrong, it's unpatriotic and it needs to be stopped.

The correct way to eat a fresh feijoa has been passed down through generations of New Zealanders.

You take a knife (a spoon will do in a pinch) and slice the feijoa in half widthways at its fattest point.

Holding a feijoa half in one hand, you take a teaspoon - ideally one with a nice thin edge - with the other and scoop out the sweet, jellied centre and tart, grainy surrounding flesh.

This method also gives the eater the most control over how much of the sourer outer edge of the flesh is eaten, and provides maximum taste for minimum waste. You can continue to scrape the walls closer and closer until you hit your acidic limit.

With practice, however, you'll be able to clear the whole half out in one deft flick of the wrist – coincidently a great exercise to maintain flexibility in the joint.

The feijoa comes with its own biodegradable packaging so you can keep your hands clean (because you haven't peeled it off), and when you're done eating you're left with a nice stackable pile of cups for easy transfer to the compost bin.

No muss, no fuss. Efficient, the best taste-to-waste ratio and at no point does your feijoa look like a geometric rotten egg.

End of discussion.

Kristin Macfarlane

A wise man once said, while interrupting pop star Taylor Swift as she was receiving a moon man at the MTV Awards one year, "I'm a let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time."

This, Samantha, applies to my way of eating feijoas as well. My way is also the greatest of all time, or the GOAT as some may say.

Feijoa season is an exciting one for me, it's my first since returning to New Zealand after a few years in Australia, where picking feijoas involved a six-hour round trip and $8 a kilogram.

So while I was innocently eating my feijoas at work, just as I have done so for as long as I can remember, I was shocked to bear the brunt of a barrage of criticism and name calling and having my sanity questioned from my colleagues who claim to eat them the "traditional way" by cutting them in half and scooping out the flesh with a spoon.

My colleagues, let's call them the traditional eaters, seem to be an aggressive bunch of feijoas that are being eaten the wrong way.

My way on the other hand, which involves peeling the skin and eating them in bites, or even cutting them in halves and eating them in portions, makes sense to me for the following reasons:

One, the work is done after the peeling so you can enjoy the feijoa in all its glory and two, you get more out it. I enjoy the tang, it's my favourite part.

I've had many traditional eaters tell me how weird I am for eating them this way but if that's the case, sorry for being myself guys, but I'm confident I'm right ... even if I could only find two others in my office, and one other outside of my office, to agree with me.