An Apple a Day Does Surprisingly Little?

How did apples get to be the standard bearer for all that is good and healthy? In terms of nutrient per calorie, they’re not that good. 1 cup has 65 calories, 3 grams of fiber (12% RDA), and 5.7 mg vitamin C (10% RDA), and very small amounts of a wide range of other nutrients. Pears are just slightly better: 1 cup has 81 calories, 4g fiber, 5.7 mg vitamin C, and enough potassium to be noticeable.  Meanwhile the same volume of grapes, so long derided as nature’s candy, have 104 calories, 1.4g fiber, 16.3 mg vitamin C, 22 mcg potassium.  Almost everything apples or pears have trace amounts of, grapes have slightly more of.

I wonder how much of this is because of the skin:pulp ratio.  Produce skin tends to have a lot the bulk of the vitamins*.  Plus grapes are more colorful, and color intensity is a shockingly good proxy for nutritional value in produce.

I also wonder how apples got such a sterling reputation without the benefit of a good marketing firm.   My best guess is that they grow further north than most fruit and keep for much longer, and established cultural supremacy back when produce was scarce and fruit did not regularly fly.

Full disclosure: I was originally going to compare apples to iceberg lettuce, which I had previously seen described as nutritionally vacuous but easy to ship.  But when I looked it up I discovered iceberg lettuce actually has a pretty good nutritional profile.  1 cup has 10 calories, 1 g fiber, 2.0 mg vitamin C, and 22.0 mcg potassium (22% RDA), and trace amounts of other stuff, which makes it strictly better than apples on a per calorie basis.

While we are at it: spinach does not have that much iron.  It has a number of other vitamins and is very good for you, but the original reputation for iron-richness came from some guy putting the decimal point in the wrong place (source: some guy at a party 6 years ago).  In fact the oxalates in spinach bind iron, making it harder to absorb.

Apples aren’t bad for you.  If you want an apple, eat an apple.  But if don’t want an apple and are trying to cajole yourself into it to make doctors keep their distance, consider grapes instead.

*Also the pesticides.