Fascinating Facts …

  • If you plant apple seeds, you’ll never get the exact same type of apple from the new trees. That’s why commercially-grown apple trees are propagated by grafting and budding.
  • It took scientists from 20 institutions two years to decode the genome of the Golden Delicious apple in 2010. With 57,000 genes, it had the highest number of genes of any plant studied until then.
  • The ancient Greeks associated apples with Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love. If you wanted to declare your love for someone, you threw an apple at them. And, if you caught the apple thrown at you, it meant you loved them back.
  • The popular saying “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” originated in Wales in the 1800s. The original proverb was actually, “Eat an apple on going to bed, and you’ll keep the doctor from earning his bread.”
100

Calories per apple

38

Low glycemic index

15%

Of your recommended daily fibre

Nutrition

Apples are considered nutritional powerhouses, thanks to all the important nutrients they contain. Apples are great sources of Vitamin C, Vitamin A, and B-complex vitamins. They contain calcium, magnesium and iron, along with pectin, which is good for digestion.

They also contain trace amounts of boron, which helps protect bones, and their skins contain quercetin, which has powerful antioxidant properties.

Apples are an excellent source of dietary fibre, which can help lower cholesterol, control weight and regulate your blood sugar. One apple contains more than 15 percent of your daily recommended intake of fibre.

There are less than 100 calories in an apple, which makes it just right for a healthy snack. Apples are free from sodium, fat and cholesterol.

Remember, that most of an apple’s nutrients are found in the skin, so it’s best to eat them unpeeled.

Apples for healthy weight

Apples have a GI of 38, making them a low-GI food. Foods with a GI of less than 55 make you feel full for longer and help control appetite. They also prevent your blood sugar from spiking and then crashing.

To manage weight and aid weight loss, doctors recommend a diet rich in fibre. Apples are high in soluble fibre. This means that they make you feel full without needing to consume lots of calories. The fibre in apples also aids digestion, and assists your body in absorbing nutrients.

Apples are excellent for boosting energy, so they’re a perfect pre or post exercise snack. Some studies have shown that apples may even help to speed up your metabolism, so the calories you consume after eating an apple could burn off quicker.

Choosing apples

Choose apples that are firm with good colouring, and avoid apples with soft or dark spots. When you hold an apple in the palm of your hand, it should feel solid and heavy. Avoid apples that are soft and light. Check that apples don’t wrinkle by running your thumb gently across the skin. Also check that there’s no roughness and browning close to the stem (this is known as russetting).

Although colours vary for some types of apples, yellowness in Granny Smiths, for example, indicates that they are overripe. Overripe apples release something called ethylene gas, which stimulates the ripening and rotting of other apples and fruit around them, including pears.

Some apples are speckled with little dots, called lenticels. These are the pores that the fruit breathes through, and their colour can indicate how ripe the fruit is. Avoid apples with very dark brown or pitted lenticels.