Health benefits and harms of apples
Apples are one of the most popular fruits in the world. Having spread from Central Asia, the domestic apple tree and its many varieties became the basis of almost every garden in Europe, China and the Middle East, and then in America, Australia and Africa.
In English and Chinese, there are similar proverbs, which translate something like this: "whoever eats an apple a day does not visit the doctor." In Russian there is a similar saying: "An apple for lunch - and there are no diseases." This apt expression reflects the value of regularly eating apples, which, due to the variety of varieties and methods of storage and canning, can be eaten all year round.
However, for some people, this proverb is irrelevant, since in certain diseases, the use of apples must be reduced, or even stopped altogether. In addition, the health benefits of apples can vary significantly between varieties. To understand when, how and what apples you need to eat to maintain and restore the health of your body, read the rest of this article.
Content:
- Which ones to choose? Red, yellow and green apples
- Composition and calorie content
- The benefits of apples
- The benefits of pickled apples
- Harm to apples
- How to store apples at home?
- Apples: Do's and Don'ts?
How to choose apples? Red, yellow and green
The color of a ripe apple means that it contains certain pigments. In addition, the benefits of an apple are directly related to this pigment, and speaks of a different concentration of other substances characteristic of each variety.
- Green apples. Most nutritionists consider green apples to be the healthiest. First of all, this is due to the fact that green fruits are generally easier to accept by any organism and much less often than others (yellow, red, black) cause specific allergic reactions. Therefore, children should be given green apples, which, moreover, contain more malic acid, which aids digestion. It has been scientifically proven that green apples contain more ascorbic acid and have a lower glycemic index than red and yellow apples. This means that after eating them, the blood glucose level rises more slowly, therefore, diets for diabetics and patients with pathologies of the cardiovascular system must necessarily indicate: there are only green apples.
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Red apples. Red apples are famous for their aesthetic beauty; they are most often used in various advertisements, although green apples are more beneficial in terms of the content of nutrients. Red apples, on the other hand, usually have less acid (which means they are harder for the stomach) and more sugars (which makes them dangerous for diabetics and increases the risk of tooth decay in children).
- Yellow apples. Fruits of yellow varieties differ significantly in taste from the previous two. Not everyone likes one of the most popular yellow apples of the Golden variety, as they contain more pectin, but less iron compounds. Although it is better to check the concentration of iron compounds yourself by observing their oxidation after cutting the pulp. With such a simple practical method, you can see the difference in iron content even for apples from the same tree. Yellow apples also heal the liver and promote the elimination of bile.
Composition and calorie content
- Fats: 0.17 g
- Proteins: 0.26 g
- Carbohydrates: 13.82 g
-
Water:
85.56 g
- Ash: 0.19 g
- Cellulose: 2.4 g
Vitamins (per 100 g): |
amount |
% RDA |
| Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) | 2.6-31 mg | 24.3% |
| Vitamin B3 (PP, nicotinic acid) | 0.2-2.0 mg | 5.5% |
Minerals (in 100 g): |
amount |
% RDA |
| Boron | 245 μg | 350% |
| Rubidium | 63 μg | 63% |
| Vanadium | 4 μg | 12.5% |
| Silicon | 2-5 mg | 11.7% |
| Iron | 0.1-2.2 mg | 10.5% |
| Cobalt | 1 μg | ten% |
Other important connections:
- Phytosterols - 12 mg (21.8% of the RDI)
- Purines - 6 mg (5% of the RDI)
- Oxalic acid - 1.5 mg (0.4% of the RDI)
Complete chemical composition ➤
The benefits of apples
A fresh apple picked recently from a tree contains many nutrients that the body needs every day for normal, healthy life. The main and especially necessary among them are the vitamins retinol, a set of various beta-carotenes and ascorbic acid.
Due to the fragility of vitamin C, which is destroyed during long-term storage, grinding or heat treatment of the fruit, it is recommended to eat apples raw. The amount of ascorbic acid in apples is determined by their maturity, variety and conditions in which the tree itself grows, therefore, significant fluctuations in this indicator are possible (in some apples it can be 3-5 times more than in others).
The presence of another category of complex organic compounds that are beneficial to the body - pectins - provides apples with a low glycemic index, although, as already mentioned, it is lower in green fruits than in red and yellow ones.
But the benefits don't end there. Apples contain the daily value of flavonoids, which play a significant role in metabolism, and enter our body only with plant foods. They change the activity of certain enzymes so that the synthesis of urinary is slowed down and the catabolism of formic acid is accelerated. It improves the condition of patients with gout, rheumatism, eczema and other skin and joint diseases.
Apples are a pleasure to quench your thirst, as on average these fruits contain 87% pure water. The most important substances for life - fats, proteins and carbohydrates - make up 0.4, 0.4, and 11% of an apple, respectively. Dietary fiber, or fiber, is considered separately - only six-tenths of a percent of them are in the pulp and skin. A whole percent of the apple mass is given to pectins, and 0.8 g to ash compounds. Apples are a low-calorie food, since on average 100 g of an apple contains only 47 kcal.
The benefits of apples in cosmetology
Applesauce, juice, slices and even flowers have long been used by the fair half of the population of Eurasia as raw materials for the preparation of various cosmetics. These ingredients help to refresh the skin, give the face a ruddy appearance, remove the top layer of dead cells of the epidermis and thus remove fine wrinkles. Since many significant holidays occur in winter, there are also recipes using dried and soaked apples.
The simplest thing that anyone can quickly improve the condition of the skin of the face is apple massage. To do this, you need to take a slice of fresh apple and massage the skin with it, especially in the area around the eyes and on the cheeks. This procedure unclogs pores, slightly moisturizes the skin, removes puffiness and bags under the eyes.
In order not to harm your skin, choose the appropriate apple varieties. Be guided by the principle: the drier the epidermis, the sweeter the apple should be. That is, oily skin needs acidic fruits.
Interestingly, even a product like apple cider vinegar (meaning a natural product, not a flavored table vinegar) can be used for daily washings if you mix a teaspoon with half a liter of purified water. This mild solution is suitable for all skin types. Especially for normal skin, you can also prepare a decoction for washing from green apples: 50 grams of peel in 300 ml of water are boiled for 5 minutes with orange peels in a steam bath, then infused for an hour in a dark place. If you add cinnamon to this broth, you get an excellent anti-aging mist that can be sprayed evenly over the entire surface of the face using a spray bottle.
Baths based on a mixture of sunflower or olive oil with apple cider vinegar in equal proportions are very useful for hands and nails.
With the help of fresh apples, you can get rid of warts without harm to the skin. The classic method for removing papilloma virus outgrowths is a strong alkaline agent called celandine, which can burn the epithelium. If you rub the warts with a slice of fresh green apple for a whole month 5 times a day, a similar effect is produced (neoplasms simply dry up and disappear), but without the danger of getting a chemical burn.
And the most unexpected thing - a reliable remedy for strengthening hair is made from apple leaves. To do this, the leaves of summer varieties of apple trees are boiled for 10 minutes in a proportion of 50 g of dried raw materials to 0.5 liters of water. With a filtered and cooled broth, you need to rinse problem hair after each wash with any shampoo.
The benefits of apple peels and seeds
Most of the above substances are concentrated in the skin and in the pulp underneath, so apples should be eaten with the skin.
Although this applies only to fruits grown in environmentally friendly conditions. Even "clean" garden fruits for long-term transportation are coated with biphenyl (which is prohibited in the countries of the European Union and in the USA with a recognized carcinogen). Therefore, all store-bought apples are recommended not only to be washed, but also to be peeled. Moreover, the skin of apples grown on chemicals becomes the source of these very chemicals, which is why it must be peeled off.
In addition to the peel, apple seeds are also beneficial, since they contain a lot of irreplaceable active components, due to which the development of cancer cells is stopped and the degeneration of benign tumors into oncological ones is prevented. Also, apple seeds are rich in iodine, the acute shortage of which is felt by every resident of large cities.
Another specific substance found in apple seeds is the poisonous glucoside amygdalin, which is an anti-cancer vitamin B17. In moderate doses it is beneficial, in large doses it is poisonous.
The benefits of pickled apples
Pickled apples retain the beneficial properties of fresh fruits, are easier for the body to digest and are stored for a long time, are an excellent product for the winter diet, restore the body's vitamin and mineral reserves and fill it with energy.
There are many recipes for pickled apples, the method of preparation depends on your taste preferences - someone loves sweet apples, while someone loves sour fruit and vegetable preparations with cabbage, which can be put on the table as a salad. Previously, apples were soaked in tubs and wooden barrels under pressure, where they were perfectly stored all winter, gaining taste and piquant aroma from the brine.
Old recipes can be adapted to modern realities and use glass containers for soaking apples. It is easy to cook pickled apples in a glass bottle at home, they differ little from the fruits soaked in a barrel in taste, and the benefits of apples are almost completely preserved.
Fruits for homemade preparations should be fresh and whole without damage to the skin. Be sure to use ripe fruits harvested in late autumn, but the pulp should be firm and firm, overripe apples with decaying pulp are not suitable for soaking.
Several varieties of apples are suitable for soaking. The most commonly used are antonovka, pepin, titovka and pineapples. The harder the pulp of the apples used, the longer they need to be aged and soaked so that their density is suitable for further processing. Therefore, it is most profitable to immediately buy apples of the required density (and not hard, and not soft).
We hope that it is obvious to everyone that for high-quality urination, only natural products are needed, grown in gardens from an ecologically clean zone. Talk to local people in villages and villages who do not know what it means to use pesticides and other chemicals.
Of these apples, you should choose only the ripe and whole, with a skin without dents or cracks. Even a small dent with rotten pulp can become the very "fly in the ointment" that spoils the entire product obtained as a result of urinating.
When soaking, clean water should be regularly added to a container with apples, since the pulp of the fruit absorbs it like a sponge. If you allow the skin of the upper fruits to be exposed, rotting may begin, which will gradually infect all the contents in the container.
Recipe. This Slavic delicacy can be prepared according to many different recipes. The essence of the process is to soak apples in water with the addition of a variety of spices and additives such as spices, mustard, lavender, herbs (basil, mint, oregano, thyme), honey, alum and even berries (cherries, cherries, blueberries, cranberries, currants).
Of course, you can find a complex recipe for peeling apples, for example, with cabbage, which is owned by sophisticated housewives, but there will be a great risk of failure. Often, due to the first negative experience, the hostesses refuse to urinate in the future. So that even a beginner can cope with this difficult task, it is worth choosing the simple and reliable options presented below.
Harm to apples
Today, the apple diet remains quite popular, as it achieves impressive results in terms of weight loss. Nevertheless, the constant use of the same product can negatively affect the state of the body, since it does not receive a significant amount of useful and necessary substances, and some receives in excess of the norm.
For example, apples contain a small percentage of coarse fiber, but in the case of the apple mono-diet, the body, anyway, gets too much of it. As a result, colitis, ulcerative symptoms and gastritis are exacerbated. The abundance of fruit acids obtained daily provokes the start of inflammatory processes in the gallbladder.
Also, apples are harmful not only with fruit acids, but also with various sugars, and the fruits of red varieties contain much more sweetness than is useful. This combination has a detrimental effect on tooth enamel, and its thinning provokes tooth sensitivity and increases the risk of all dental diseases.
Sweet apples of red and yellow varieties are forbidden to be consumed by diabetics, as they have too high a glycemic index. The same danger is inherent in apple juice, whether freshly squeezed or manufactured. In addition, too frequent consumption of apple juice contributes to the rapid dissolution of tooth enamel, which can cause teeth to crumble and develop their hypersensitivity.
And the last thing that is harmful to apples is parasites. On apples, after lengthy studies, they found eggs of animals that provoke helminthiases, ascariasis, and nematodes. And although this applies to all fruits and vegetables, apples, as the most popular fruit, must be washed especially thoroughly before using running water.
The harm of apple seeds
Many talk only about the positive effect of apple seeds, while it is obvious that the hydrocyanic acid contained in them is far from a useful component, for the neutralization of which the body requires additional liver resources. Therefore, everyone is talking about a conditional, but quite correct limit of 5 seeds per day, so as not to provoke intoxication.
How to store apples at home?
Apples are excellent at home and can stay all winter long. But it is important for storage to choose only perfectly fresh fruits without spots and the slightest signs of rotting - one rotten fruit, in contact with other apples, can spread spoilage throughout all reserves and reduce their shelf life.
You can keep apples in cardboard or wooden boxes, they are wiped with glycerin and each individually wrapped in a thin sheet of paper, laid with sawdust. The temperature in the storage room should not rise above zero degrees Celsius, the optimum humidity is 80-90%.
If you have a summer cottage, but there is no cellar, you can store fruits even in shallow pits (45-50 cm), dug specifically for this purpose. The bottom of the recess is laid with branches of coniferous plants to prevent damage by bacteria and rodents. The fruits are immersed in a plastic bag, tied tightly, lowered into a pit and sprinkled with earth.
How long can apples be stored? Summer apples are on average two to four weeks old, if no special measures are taken to extend their "lifespan". Autumn and winter varieties, such as Anis, Antonovka, Florina, Winter lungwort, Autumn striped and others, can lie for a month or two, and under special conditions - from seven months to a year. For the preservation of summer varieties of apples, it is important that the temperature does not drop below zero, winter varieties withstand a drop in temperature to -3 ° C, but an increase above +5 does not tolerate well and deteriorate.
How to store dried apples at home? If, when storing fresh apples in the refrigerator, it is important not to allow the fruit to lose moisture, for which they are stored in tightly closed plastic bags, then for the safety of dried apples it is important to prevent an increase in the moisture level. The best container for storing apple dryers is a glass jar with a screw cap, placed on the top shelf of the cabinet, where the air is dry and warm. The permissible storage temperature is from 0 to +8 ° C Celsius.
Apples: Do's and Don'ts?
Can apples for gastritis?
Apples can be included in the diet of patients with gastritis of high acidity, but during the period of exacerbation, sweet varieties should be preferred and eaten baked. Sour apples of green varieties for gastritis are useful in grated form on an empty stomach in the morning, combined with a special diet that excludes sweet, fatty and spicy foods, fresh bread and other foods that provoke intestinal irritation. The use of apples for medicinal purposes for gastritis is carried out in courses - for the first month they need to be eaten fresh daily in the morning, in the second month three times a week are enough. During periods of exacerbation, it is recommended to eat apples only baked without sugar for two weeks.
As already mentioned, it is better not to eat apples at night - they stimulate the secretion of gastric juice, increase appetite and contribute to increased gas production, which is not combined with normal sleep.
Can apples be breastfed?
Green apples are the safest to eat, they can be consumed even by women weakened after childbirth to recharge and supply the body with vitamins, minerals, dietary fiber. During and after pregnancy, bowel function may be disrupted, women often experience constipation - apples help to solve this problem as well. But there is one caveat - vegetables and fruits in their raw form can provoke increased gas formation, therefore, if you feel discomfort after eating apples, you should refrain from these fruits. You can minimize this risk by eating baked apples.
Red apples should be eaten with caution during breastfeeding. First, the plant pigments that give the fruit skin a red hue are often allergens and can provoke rashes and intestinal disorders in a newborn. Secondly, red apples are most often sweet varieties, and sugars in combination with fruit acids damage tooth enamel, promote the leaching of calcium from the body, which is especially dangerous for nursing mothers who already lose a lot of calcium in breast milk. In addition, the large amount of carbohydrates in sweet apples can provoke pain and colic in an infant, disrupting the normal functioning of the digestive tract.
Apples contain a biologically available mineral complex, supply the body with calcium, sodium and iron, help restore hemoglobin levels when it drops, and normalize blood pressure. The increased content of dietary fiber in apples contributes to the normalization of the digestive system and intestinal cleansing processes - it is enough to eat one apple a day to get the required daily fiber intake.
Baked apples are not only a delicious and aromatic dessert, but also a very healthy product. In this form, apples are more easily absorbed by the body, during the baking process, pectin substances are concentrated in them, which have an anti-inflammatory effect and not only help with intestinal disorders, normalizing the gastrointestinal tract, but also accelerate the process of a woman's recovery after childbirth. To prepare such a dish is very simple and quick - it takes two to three minutes to peel the apples from the core (from the inside they can be filled with honey and chopped walnuts) and fifteen minutes to bake.
Apples are useful not only for nursing mothers, but are also used as the first complementary food for six-month-old babies - it is better to choose green and yellow apples for this purpose so as not to provoke allergic rashes in the child.
Do apples contain iron?
Dried apples are rich in iron, so they can be included in the diet to increase the level of hemoglobin in the blood - 100 grams of dried apples contains up to 2.0 mg of iron, and in addition - rutin, vitamin C and folic acid, thanks to which iron is better absorbed. There is a higher iron content in apples of sour varieties; you can visually identify such an apple by its tart taste and rapid darkening at the site of the cut or bite of the fruit. The apple flesh turns brown due to iron oxidation, which is why apples that darken quickly are the healthiest for people with anemia and brittle blood vessels. Only apples must be dried.
There is also a folk remedy to "enrich" an apple with iron - for this, a nail is stuck into it for two or three days. However, this recipe is rather dubious, since bacteria, causative agents of infectious diseases, can be brought into the fetus with a nail.
Can apples be frozen for the winter?
If you do not have a cellar for storing fresh fruits in winter, then you can freeze them in the refrigerator, where they are safely stored for up to 12 months, preserving their useful properties and taste. You can freeze apples either in the form of slices or chopped in mashed potatoes - such blanks are convenient to use for making charlotte, filling for pies and puff buns. If the size of the refrigerating chamber allows, then apples can even be frozen whole.
The main condition for preserving the beneficial properties of the product is to use exclusively fresh fruits without signs of spoilage when freezing, do not re-freeze them and do not allow moisture and air to enter the storage container.
Do plucked apples ripen during storage?
Unlike fruits such as pear, kiwi and persimmons, apples do not ripen during storage, which is why it is very important to choose the right time for harvesting.
Apples have an interesting feature that is often used by farmers - when stored, they release ethylene, which speeds up the ripening of other fruits. So, if you put an apple stored next to unripe pears, they will quickly become fragrant and soft. However, it is not recommended to store apples next to potatoes - this will adversely affect the quality of both products. Apples will develop a starchy aroma and flavor, and potatoes will have a shorter shelf life.
Can you eat apples at night?
There is no single answer to this controversial question. On the one hand, eating an apple before bed can help satisfy hunger by consuming few calories. Also, in the absence of proper conditions (for example, on a hike), an apple helps to clean teeth from plaque and prevent the growth of carious bacteria.
On the other hand, the fruit eaten at night stimulates the appetite, which will make you eat something extra, and the fiber contained in apples can provoke colitis and flatulence.
Therefore, in order to make the right decisions about the benefits of an evening apple, you can also watch this video:
The author of the article: Kuzmina Vera Valerievna | Endocrinologist, nutritionist
Education: Diploma of the Russian State Medical University named after NI Pirogov with a degree in General Medicine (2004). Residency at Moscow State University of Medicine and Dentistry, diploma in Endocrinology (2006).
