Displaced Beachbums

A couple weeks ago, the man selling apples at the Farmers’ Market offered FG a “taste” of a freshly picked cortland apple and from that bite, she’s been hooked. She looked at the bowl of apples on the counter yesterday and saw only three apples left. She got a bit of a twitch and said “Mommy, there’s not enough apples to last until Saturday.”

She’s always liked sliced apples with peanut butter or nutella but now she grabs one from the bowl and munches away without anything to hide the taste. The apple selection here in upstate New York is fabulous ~ rows and rows of different types in the grocery stores.  I know very little about apples so I’ve now got a chart I take with me. FG’s favorites are: Cortland, Fuji, Golden Delicious and Granny Smith.

Personally, I prefer mangoes, papayas, guavas…almost anything over an apple. In fact, I’ve always thought of apples as a bit tasteless and boring but that’s probably because by the time it’s shipped to Hawaii, the apple has lost its flavor. But after reading an article in the October 2007 issue of Good Housekeeping, I may have to give them another try.

Here are the top five reasons to eat an apple a day:

1) They are PACKED with fiber (20 percent of your daily value). They take awhile to eat so your body registers that it’s full before you’re tempted to eat more food. The natural sweetener of an apple enters your body slowly so you get steady blood sugar levels.
2) Researchers from the UK found the children of women who ate the most apples while pregnant were less likely to develop lung problems (wheezing, asthma, etc). For adults, the reseach suggests apples may lower asthma and lung cancer.
3) The pectin (a type of fiber) and polyphenols (antioxidants) can lower cholesterol levels(especially LDL levels). Important note: eat the skin, it has 2-6 times the antioxidant compounds as the fleshy part.
4) Italian researchers found that eating apples lowered risks for certain cancers such as oral, esophageal, colon, breast, ovarian and prostate.
5) Apples heighten the production of acetylcholine which is a chemical that transmits messages between nerve cells thus keeping your brain sharp as you age. University of Mass in Lowell is doing animal studies on the effects of apples on Alzheimer’s disease.

For me, the thought of an apple keeping my brain in good working order is enough to convince me to bite into an apple a day but I think I’ll go with the baked tasty version such as this.