A is for apple

Autumn is prime time for this beneficial fruit

Asbury Park Press, September 27, 2006

By MICHAEL RILEY
STAFF WRITER

The apple.

Sometimes maligned in Western culture as the source of the fall of humanity and, at the same time, the kind of pie by which something is classified as American as, the apple comes into its own in the fall.

We really don't know what fruit Eve was tempted to pluck there in the Garden of Eden. After all, the Bible really doesn't say. Some scholars think it was more likely a pomegranate than a Red Delicious.

An apple a day may help keep the doctor away, unless you're Isaac Newton and one falls on your head and makes you discover gravity, but it is a good source of vitamins.

George Simmons is the manager of the fruit department at Delicious Orchards in Colts Neck. The man knows his apples. He pretty much has to since, at the height of the fall apple season, Delicious Orchards will have 24 varieties for sale.

Apples for baking, apples for eating, apples for cider, miniature apples for garnish, ancient apples, basically unchanged since the 18th century, with names like Huddleston Nonesuch, and new varieties from places like New Zealand. So new, in fact, that they might not even have an official name yet.

"It takes a big commitment of time and resources to bring a new variety of apple to market," says Simmons. "Growers will test-market a new variety even before it has a name. Sometimes we have to make up a name before an official one is decided on," he says. "Customers aren't fond of buying an apple with a sign over it that reads GS2058." Sometimes, he says, consumers are swayed by the glamour and glitter of the Red Delicious, believing it to be bright and shiny red - the epitome of what an apple is.

It's a fine apple, he says, but certainly not the only apple that is good eating. Or maybe not even the best tasting.

"A Red Delicious apple is beautiful to look at, but for the last two or three years, the Honey Crisp is gaining in popularity," Simmons says.

Some people prefer to drink their apples rather than eat them. And, after all, fall is cider time.

Cider is often a mixture of sweet and tart apples with more art than science involved in its creation, says Simmons.

But there is science involved in exactly what apples have that helps keep the doctor away.

Robyn Flipse, a registered dietitian and author who lives in Bradley Beach, says that apples have a lot going for them.

"They are portable, tough and convenient," she says. They store well and are versatile as a snack smeared with peanut butter or in a salad or just as they are."

And nutritionally, well, they are chock full of something called polyphenols, which have antioxidant properties.

Oxygen bouncing around the body's cells can eventually do damage to them, Flipse says, and antioxidants slow down that process. Apples also provide needed fiber to the diet, and are a good source of the five cups of FDA recommended daily fruits and vegetables.

Apples may not be a miracle food, but they are good for you, and there are plenty of kinds to choose from.

"There's an apple for everybody," Flipse says.

And while the harvest season is close at hand in these parts, Americans are used to getting good apples year-round, from places such as South America and New Zealand.

The technology of shipping and storing apples has improved dramatically, Simmons says, adding that cool crisp apples are available any time of the year.

Consumers are sometimes blinded by the shiny allure of apples, even if the shine comes from added wax, Simmons says.

"We ask our Washington state growers if they can ship us their apples without waxing them, but they can't. Our local apples are not waxed. Apples have a natural wax to them. You can shine them up, even though you can't judge an apple by its shine," he says.