Eating Homegrown Apples

[T.G.G. Moogly]

If you don't do a lot of spraying, which I do not, your apples will be buggy. I'll do a few sprayings with something very safe but nothing like commercially grown apples are exposed to. So I found that the trick to enjoying these homegrown apples is to not peel them. Just quarter them and cut out the core, which usually has the rot, and eat the apple pieces, skin and all.

My grandmother when she was preparing apples for canning would always complain about the apples being buggy. But she was peeling them, which wasted a lot of apple. Thinking back it was really wasteful to peel those apples, but that was how it was done, even though you're removing lots of nutrition. So I take a few of my buggy apples to work and enjoy them just the same.

I've got to believe that peeling apples is a modern thing that became possible when apples were domesticated and got bigger. It's really kinda dumb to peel an apple just to can it or to make a pie or to make sauce.

 

[spikepipsqueak]

With fruit, meat, grains we tend to discard the part with the nourishment and keep the part that is easy to chew.

Status indicators and laziness triumphing over common sense?

 

[TV and credit cards]

If you don't do a lot of spraying, which I do not, your apples will be buggy. I'll do a few sprayings with something very safe but nothing like commercially grown apples are exposed to. So I found that the trick to enjoying these homegrown apples is to not peel them. Just quarter them and cut out the core, which usually has the rot, and eat the apple pieces, skin and all.

My grandmother when she was preparing apples for canning would always complain about the apples being buggy. But she was peeling them, which wasted a lot of apple. Thinking back it was really wasteful to peel those apples, but that was how it was done, even though you're removing lots of nutrition. So I take a few of my buggy apples to work and enjoy them just the same.

I've got to believe that peeling apples is a modern thing that became possible when apples were domesticated and got bigger. It's really kinda dumb to peel an apple just to can it or to make a pie or to make sauce.

Come the day we may be saying the same thing about the bugs.

I seem to recall my mom peeling carrots. WTF mom?

 

[iolo]

If you have good trees, you grow so many apples that many are perfect, and the ones with little visitors fall off for the pigs.

 

[Rhea]

When we have a large harvest, I take the excess down to the food bank. At first I was worried that they might be put off by the look of my never-sprayed apples. But I was pleased as punch that they had a healthy organic attitude and loved the apples as-is.

I don't have much of a problem with bugs inside them, for us it's more of a need to wash them with scrubbing because they get a bit of a black patina from the moisture, but it washes right off. So once washed, they might be a little bumpy on the skin from scars of early-season bugs, but there are no blemishes inside - and are fine with the skin on.

On a strong year we donate several hundred pounds of apples (600 pounds, one year, and that was _after_ making over 100 gallons of cider!), a sparse year might be just a bushel or two.

I agree that America went through a time of mincing their way through fresh food afraid of skins and blemishes and that I'm glad to see a trend back away from that. Yeah, like peeling carrots, WTF.

 

[Angry Floof]

I like leaving peels on a lot of fruits and vegetables, but in pies and other cooked recipes, apple peel can end up tough and sharp like plastic.

 

[thebeave]

If you don't do a lot of spraying, which I do not, your apples will be buggy. I'll do a few sprayings with something very safe but nothing like commercially grown apples are exposed to. So I found that the trick to enjoying these homegrown apples is to not peel them. Just quarter them and cut out the core, which usually has the rot, and eat the apple pieces, skin and all.

My grandmother when she was preparing apples for canning would always complain about the apples being buggy. But she was peeling them, which wasted a lot of apple. Thinking back it was really wasteful to peel those apples, but that was how it was done, even though you're removing lots of nutrition. So I take a few of my buggy apples to work and enjoy them just the same.

I've got to believe that peeling apples is a modern thing that became possible when apples were domesticated and got bigger. It's really kinda dumb to peel an apple just to can it or to make a pie or to make sauce.

Maybe this is a dumb question, but what in particular is the issue with spraying the apples?

 

[iolo]

If you don't do a lot of spraying, which I do not, your apples will be buggy. I'll do a few sprayings with something very safe but nothing like commercially grown apples are exposed to. So I found that the trick to enjoying these homegrown apples is to not peel them. Just quarter them and cut out the core, which usually has the rot, and eat the apple pieces, skin and all.

My grandmother when she was preparing apples for canning would always complain about the apples being buggy. But she was peeling them, which wasted a lot of apple. Thinking back it was really wasteful to peel those apples, but that was how it was done, even though you're removing lots of nutrition. So I take a few of my buggy apples to work and enjoy them just the same.

I've got to believe that peeling apples is a modern thing that became possible when apples were domesticated and got bigger. It's really kinda dumb to peel an apple just to can it or to make a pie or to make sauce.

Maybe this is a dumb question, but what in particular is the issue with spraying the apples?

You spray poison to kill things. Think it will do you good to eat it?

 

[braces_for_impact]

I'm always amazed that people peel most fruits and vegetables. I understand for some things: citrus fruits, bananas. Peeling a carrot I have never understood, or an apple. That's the best part to me. Even a baked potato there's nothing left once I'm finished.

 

[Sarpedon]

I've never had apple pie with unpeeled apples. That's crazy talk.

And as long as we are talking nutrition, if you are all about that, you should eat the bugs too. Not eating the bugs also removes nutrition.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

With fruit, meat, grains we tend to discard the part with the nourishment and keep the part that is easy to chew.

Status indicators and laziness triumphing over common sense?

We're doing what the plants want. The nourishment is for the seed, the plants don't want us eating that. They want us eating the bait and spreading the seed.

 

[EricK]

I'm always amazed that people peel most fruits and vegetables. I understand for some things: citrus fruits, bananas. Peeling a carrot I have never understood, or an apple. That's the best part to me. Even a baked potato there's nothing left once I'm finished.

Potato skin is also where most of the poison is: http://www.food-info.net/uk/qa/qa-fp95.htm

 

[braces_for_impact]

I'm always amazed that people peel most fruits and vegetables. I understand for some things: citrus fruits, bananas. Peeling a carrot I have never understood, or an apple. That's the best part to me. Even a baked potato there's nothing left once I'm finished.

Potato skin is also where most of the poison is: http://www.food-info.net/uk/qa/qa-fp95.htm

I think you'll die of too much starch before you need to worry about solanine poisoning.

 

[DrZoidberg]

If you don't do a lot of spraying, which I do not, your apples will be buggy. I'll do a few sprayings with something very safe but nothing like commercially grown apples are exposed to. So I found that the trick to enjoying these homegrown apples is to not peel them. Just quarter them and cut out the core, which usually has the rot, and eat the apple pieces, skin and all.

My grandmother when she was preparing apples for canning would always complain about the apples being buggy. But she was peeling them, which wasted a lot of apple. Thinking back it was really wasteful to peel those apples, but that was how it was done, even though you're removing lots of nutrition. So I take a few of my buggy apples to work and enjoy them just the same.

I've got to believe that peeling apples is a modern thing that became possible when apples were domesticated and got bigger. It's really kinda dumb to peel an apple just to can it or to make a pie or to make sauce.

Who the fuck peels apples? The pop from crushing through the peel, and having the juice spray the inside of the mouth, is a major part of the enjoyment.

 

[thebeave]

Maybe this is a dumb question, but what in particular is the issue with spraying the apples?

You spray poison to kill things. Think it will do you good to eat it?

I've been eating produce that has been sprayed with pesticides for almost 55 years now. What bad health effects from eating this produce have I experienced so far, and what bad health effects can I expect in the future?

Also, plants produce their own natural pesticides, often at levels thousands of times greater than the dose of synthetic pesticides. Should I be worried about that?

 

[Rhea]

Maybe this is a dumb question, but what in particular is the issue with spraying the apples?

Well, for me it would be buying a sprayer, buying a pesticide, mixing it up, getting out there and spraying the thing, getting a ladder or renting a cherry picker to spray the top 80% of the tree that I can't reach and wearing some sort of mask to avoid breathing it.

Much better to sit on the porch with a beer and watch the apples grow on their own.
To me, anyway.

 

[thebeave]

Maybe this is a dumb question, but what in particular is the issue with spraying the apples?

Well, for me it would be buying a sprayer, buying a pesticide, mixing it up, getting out there and spraying the thing, getting a ladder or renting a cherry picker to spray the top 80% of the tree that I can't reach and wearing some sort of mask to avoid breathing it.

Much better to sit on the porch with a beer and watch the apples grow on their own.
To me, anyway.

Well, that's a first. Argumentum ad drink beer. I can get down with that!

 

[skepticalbip]

You spray poison to kill things. Think it will do you good to eat it?

I've been eating produce that has been sprayed with pesticides for almost 55 years now. What bad health effects from eating this produce have I experienced so far, and what bad health effects can I expect in the future?

Also, plants produce their own natural pesticides, often at levels thousands of times greater than the dose of synthetic pesticides. Should I be worried about that?

Good point....

http://www.pnas.org/content/87/19/7777.short

Abstract
The toxicological significance of exposures to synthetic chemicals is examined in the context of exposures to naturally occurring chemicals. We calculate that 99.99% (by weight) of the pesticides in the American diet are chemicals that plants produce to defend themselves. Only 52 natural pesticides have been tested in high-dose animal cancer tests, and about half (27) are rodent carcinogens; these 27 are shown to be present in many common foods. We conclude that natural and synthetic chemicals are equally likely to be positive in animal cancer tests. We also conclude that at the low doses of most human exposures the comparative hazards of synthetic pesticide residues are insignificant.

But as Rhea says, it is a lot of expense and effort to spray with manufactured pesticides, forget it and have a beer. Let the apple trees keep producing their own pesticide.

 

[thebeave]

Yep. And learn to savor the occasional (half) worm.

 

[iolo]

You spray poison to kill things. Think it will do you good to eat it?

I've been eating produce that has been sprayed with pesticides for almost 55 years now. What bad health effects from eating this produce have I experienced so far, and what bad health effects can I expect in the future?

Also, plants produce their own natural pesticides, often at levels thousands of times greater than the dose of synthetic pesticides. Should I be worried about that?

It's the same with smoking. I smoked for years and years without any harm, so there can't be any harm in it, can there?