\n I think it\u2019s been the best weather in Bolton of my life, such that we have great harvests of apples hanging from trees as I walk about.\n<\/p>\n
\n Some seem smaller than usual, perhaps due to drought, but more numerous. Should we be eating, storing, stewing, baking our apples, or not be too bothered?\n<\/p>\n
\n Apples can be up to 50p each, should we be buying them and just now cadging them off friends, neighbours, roadsides from harvests which have a glut?\n<\/p>\n
\n Apples also have anticancer potential(Image: Supplied)\n<\/p>\n
\n The answer is yes.\n<\/p>\n
\n It turns out that apples have loads of benefits.\n<\/p>\n
\n The amount of benefit depends on type, raw, cooked, organic, peeled, unpeeled, juiced etc. but in general benefits are very wide ranging.\n<\/p>\n
\n Here\u2019s a short summary.\n<\/p>\n
\n Not surprisingly apples contain mainly water, making them a low calorie food and good fluid source, great for weight watchers and all of us on hot days.\n<\/p>\n
\n They also contain numerous vitamins, minerals and fibres.\n<\/p>\n
\n The peel turns out to be exciting too, as flavonoids in apple peel have, amongst other benefits, anti-inflammatory, antiviral, anticancer and antihypertension (blood pressure) properties, and give the apple its colour.\n<\/p>\n
\n Apples reduce heart disease by lowering known risk factors for heart and vascular diseases.\n<\/p>\n
\n These are lower blood pressure and lower cholesterol, especially LDL which is low density lipoprotein and the lipid type most strongly linked to heart disease.\n<\/p>\n
\n Apples also have anticancer potential, which is being researched in the hope of separating out the active ingredients to make future medicines.\n<\/p>\n
\n This again includes flavonoid natural compounds in apple peels.\n<\/p>\n
\n Apples in experiments reduce cancer cell growth and increase cancer cell death. Apples are a good source of fibres, both cellulose and pectin.\n<\/p>\n
\n The association of fibre with large bowel (also called colon) cancer has been well established.\n<\/p>\n
\n Cancer research UK states \u2018eating lots of fibre reduces your risk of bowel cancer.\n<\/p>\n
\n Eating too little fibre causes 28 in 100 bowel cancers (28%) in the UK.\u2019 It then goes on to recommend eating more fruit and veg.\n<\/p>\n
\n Eating more fibre reduces constipation naturally and also stops the stomach emptying as quickly.\n<\/p>\n
\n This slowing of digestion reduces blood sugar absorption and cholesterol absorption into the body and so again helps reduce obesity.\n<\/p>\n
\n This slow digestion, combined with an apple\u2019s low sugar content as fructose, also reduces the rapid rise in glucose often seen after eating in people with diabetes.\n<\/p>\n
\n The sugars in apples are mainly fructose, glucose and sucrose (sucrose is a joining of glucose and fructose together).\n<\/p>\n
\n The action of sunshine on the leaves (photosynthesis) causes starch formation as a long term food source for the plant, and us if we eat it, and is glucose derived.\n<\/p>\n
\n As an aside, the apple tree also takes in carbon dioxide and releases oxygen into our air.\n<\/p>\n
\n It is that carbon capture that creates these sugars and allows us to breathe. Apple trees also produce fructose which combines with glucose to create sucrose (a disaccharide).\n<\/p>\n
\n Sucrose can travel more easily to different active parts of the tree.\n<\/p>\n
\n Fructose receives bad publicity, as added to processed foods and drinks it encourages obesity. Eaten in natural amounts though it has benefits on glucose absorption.\n<\/p>\n
\n Apples are a good source of vitamin C (ascorbic acid).\n<\/p>\n
\n This acts to cross link collagen, the scaffold of our skin and connective tissues. Therefore vitamin C is known to maintain skin, gum and body lining ( mucosa) health and is essential for wound healing.\n<\/p>\n
\n As an antioxidant it also improves the function of our immune systems.\n<\/p>\n
\n Should we eat the pips?\n<\/p>\n
\n In general no.\n<\/p>\n
\n Firstly they are bitter and secondly they contain amygdaline which is turned into cyanide in the body, so large amounts are poisonous.\n<\/p>\n
\n A few pips wont do any harm.\n<\/p>\n
\n READ MORE:\n<\/p>\n
\n Researchers have even found that some parts of pips have interesting compounds in, but as an overview my advice is avoid the pips.\n<\/p>\n
\n So next time I bite into an apple I will be thinking about its health benefits, its more than a pipsqueak, in fact (apart from its pips) an apple outstrips its little size in health benefits.\n<\/p>\n
\n An apple a day may not keep the doctor away, but it certainly has wide evidence of health benefit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I think it\u2019s been the best weather in Bolton of my life, such that we have great harvests…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[102,6636,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-165504","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nutrition","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-nutrition","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}