I know it’s supposed to be funny. The punchline to a joke.

“Do you know why millennials are all still living in their parents’ basements?”

“They spend all their money on avocado toast!”

And I guess it was cute once, roughly 1.2 million #AvocadoToast Instagram posts ago. But in recent years, the beloved brunch staple has been forced to bear the weight of a cultural scapegoat for why millennials are so far behind our parents’ generation. Not as an entry point for a real philosophical conversation about the havoc this wreaks on our economy, of course. As a joke.

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But if we’re being honest, there’s nothing funny about an entire generation left behind. And if we’re being really, really honest? I think we all know, it was never about the avocado toast.

It’s a boomer-splaining, meme-shaming effort to confine millennials into a reductive box. When really, the only time we should mention avocado toast and reduction in the same breath is when sharing a recipe for a caprese-salad take on avocado toast. Have you tried this one yet? It’s a dream. First, bring 1 cup of balsamic vinegar to boil. I’ll wait.

While your reduction is heating, toast a couple slices of pumpernickel bread. Then slice an avocado into tiny bits, squeeze a half a lemon over it, and season with a little bit of sea salt and cracked black pepper. Now mash until you’ve achieved the consistency of a very choppy, chunky guacamole. Don’t forget to check your vinegar: Your goal is to reduce the 1 cup to ¼ cup.

RECIPE: The Grand Delusion That You Can Have It All

Top your toast with a layer of basil, followed by your avocado. Now pile on with medallions of mozzarella cheese and slices of heirloom tomatoes, followed by another sprinkling of that basil. You can never have too much, am I right? Finish off with a healthy drizzle of your homemade balsamic glaze and boom! You have a world-class avocado toast.

Now where was I? Oh, yes. The avocado toast is a distraction. While it’s perfectly true that millennials love avocado toast — 40 percent of my generation report that they are “always in the mood” for it — it’s not like that’s where all our money is going.

No, my friend. That cash is going toward debt. And not mortgage debt; student debt.

Millennials are by far the most educated generation this nation has ever seen. Why? Growing up in post-Reagan America, teachers, guidance counselors and the cast of every Disney Channel TV show hammered home the fundamental belief that a college degree would ensure prosperity.

Here is the ladder to success, we were told. So we climbed it. Now, 65 percent of millennials have earned at least an associate’s degree, up from 50 percent in our grandparents’ generation. But unlike our grandparents, when we reached the top of that ladder, we were handed both a diploma and an average debt load of $17,000. That debt burden is so great, the Federal Reserve reported in November that it has kept more than 400,000 young adults from buying their first homes.

It’s also affected our generation’s ability to save. Still, there is one clear path for millennials to build a nest egg. It works like this: Slice an avocado into thin strips and lay them on a well-toasted slice of bread (ciabatta or sourdough work best for this variation). Now for the pièce de résistance: Build a nest of arugula atop the avocado. When it’s structurally sound, perch a fried egg on top.

Voilà. Nest egg.

RECIPE: The Nest Egg

(I should note that the key to frying the perfect avocado toast egg is to avoid electric stoves. You need a real flame burner, as gaslighting is the true heart and soul of the avocado toast industrial complex.)

No, avocado toast isn’t exactly cheap. In 2017, the average price for an order of avocado toast was $6.78, according to Square Sellers — the folks responsible for that square chip reader used at your favorite food trucks, breweries and other small businesses. And when I began writing this essay, I reached out to Square for an updated figure: As of this August, the average order in the U.S. is $8.66, with Houston just a little behind that at $8.20 an order.

Let’s chew on that for a second.

In Houston, the median home price is rising at a faster rate than many of the nation’s other big cities, thanks in large part to an uptick in luxury sales and a growing army of investors sweeping up the city’s starter homes in search of profit — a move that can often squeeze first-time buyers out of the market. As a result, the city’s median home price sits just $7 below $250,000, up 2.4 percent from a year ago.

That means in order to put an offer on the typical Houston house, using the standard 20 percent down payment, a Houstonian would have to cut a check for $49,998.60.

RECIPE: The 20 Percent Down Payment

Is avocado toast the barrier here? Because that’s 6,097 orders worth.

And yes, I know 57 percent of millennials report they could eat avocado toast any time of the day — according to a super reliable survey by the burger shop Carl’s Jr., anyway. (This isn’t exactly the kind of thing Deloitte keeps stats on.) But we can probably all agree on the fact that the typical Houston millennial hasn’t spent the past four years of her life chowing down on precisely 4.18 orders of avocado toast every day. “Good fat” or not, that sounds like a risky move for a health-conscious generation like ours.

So maybe, just maybe, it was never about the avocado toast.

But if it was, and avocado toast is the roadblock keeping you from all your dreams, you’re in luck. We’ve got recipes that will keep you in the good stuff for days to come, whether you’re on a my-car-is-about-to-get-repossessed-and-I-need-to-pay-my-student-loans-this-week budget, or looking to live in luxury.

Because life isn’t always easy. And neither are the choices we make. Especially when, as an entire generation debates whether to save for a house or retirement, the system keeps screaming in our ear, “Let them eat avocado toast.”

maggie.gordon@chron.com

twitter.com/MagEGordon

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