What Apples Can Do For You?

If you get advice from a Nutritionist on what to eat to be healthy, he will tell you to eat more fruits and vegetables. And in some cases, he will tell you to avoid certain ones if you have a specific illnesses. In this next series of articles, I am going to write about the benefits of specific fruits. You should be eating between 4-6 fruits per day to get fiber, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and phytochemcials that these fruits give.

So lets start with apples.

The apple has a history, in Greek and Roman times, of being associated with reincarnation, immortality, love, fertility, and healing. 

Today everyone knows that “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” and I say “three apples a day keeps you away from the doctor.” Eating three apples a day is strong medicine and they taste good. Just like most fruits, apples are free of cholesterol, sodium, and fat. They contain about 80 calories.

Nutrients in apples

Apples contain the essential minerals, chromium, iron, magnesium manganese, and potassium. For those of you looking to lose weight, chromium increases your metabolism naturally. You can take a chromium supplement each time you eat an apple. Magnesium relaxes your body and helps you to absorb calcium. So, if you are taking a calcium/magnesium supplement eat an apple also to get some true organic magnesium into your digestive system to get more calcium into your bones.

Apples also contain biotin, and thiamin, which help with your brain function. They also contain a variety of vitamins including vitamin C.

Fiber in apples

Apples contain 80% soluble fiber and 20% insoluble fiber. Fiber is necessary in your body to prevent constipation and re-adsorption of estrogen and cholesterol in the colon. Insoluble is known to prevent some types of cancer and to slow down their growth. The apple skin is extremely high in fiber, so buy apples that are not waxed so that you can eat the skin.

Antioxidants in Apples

The apple skin is also high in phytochemcials and antioxidants such as flavonoids, polyphenols, chlorogenic acid, epicatechin, phloretin glycoside, and quercetin glyocside. All of these phytochemcials protect you against free radical attacks.

Your lungs are also protected by eating apples. In a clinical study, researchers found that those who eat apples freqently have better lung function as they aged than those who did not eat them.

You can lower your cholesterol by eating two to three apples per day. Apples lower LDL and raise HDL and this benefit is obtained from the apple pectin in the apple skin. And because apples lower cholesterol, triglycerides and blood sugar, they are good for diabetics.

But if you can’t find apples to eat, their juice is just as healthy. Their juice was found to inhibit LDL oxidation just like the whole apple. So look to eat or drink three apples a day to stay healthier and to stay away from the doctor.