Apples - A Humble 'Superfood'

We keep hearing about ‘superfoods’. The term seems to apply mainly to expensive foods, such as acai berries or pomegranates, which usually need transporting from distant lands. In fact, I can’t think of a single fruit or vegetable which couldn’t be classified as a ‘superfood’. And when you mix as many of them together as possible over the course of a week, you will be eating a super intake of a super variety of nutrients! Much better for you than eating a narrow range of a few superfoods.

Having said that, I suspect a lot of us will be eating a lot of apples in the near future - or at least freezing them or bottling them in jams and jellies. Apples are not as exotic as the glamorous ‘superfoods’, but certainly pack their punch in terms of nutrition. They contain both soluble and insoluble dietary fibre – both of which have their uses. They also contain lots of vitamin C (especially straight after picking from the tree), potassium and B vitamins.

It is the more obscure phytonutrients in apples which really help them up the league of superfoods. These phytonutrients include a wide range of antioxidants such as three different versions of quercetin, procyanidin, coumaric acid and catechin. The peel and the flesh of apples each contain different proportions of different nutrients, meaning we really should eat them both to get all the benefits

It is very hard in research to ‘prove’ that eating a particular food has a particular effect – the strongest conclusion which can usually be drawn is that there is an association between eating the food and the outcome being studied. For example, research links the eating of apples by both pregnant mothers and children with a decrease in asthma. This type of research is backed up by laboratory tests which suggest that apples also help with cardiovascular disease and cancer. But we all knew that, didn’t we? An apple a day…

I’m sure everyone has their favourite apple recipes at this time of year – here’s my Mum’s:

Dorset Apple Cake
Sift 225g of plain flour, 1½ teaspoons of baking powder and at least 1 teaspoon of cinnamon together into a large bowl. Add 115g of sugar.
Peel, core and chop 225g of cooking apples together with the juice of half a lemon – I whizz them briefly in the food processor as we like the apples in small pieces, but you may prefer big chunks.
Beat one egg and mix with 3 tablespoons of milk.
Now add the apples and egg mixture to the dry ingredients and mix well.
Put in an 8” baking tin and sprinkle with 50g of sugar and ½ teaspoon of cinnamon.
Bake at 180°C for about 40 minutes before leaving it to cool in the tin.