As a teaser for all the great information that you will learn in my Food Quality Matters, how to get the biggest bang out of your organic purchases, I am doing a series on fruit and vegetable peels this week.
Today I want to talk about apple peels.
Do you peel your apples before you bake a pie or make apple sauce. I used to but no more. Some people peel the apple even before they eat it. You are losing, in many cases, the best part of the apple.
But it MUST be an organic apple. The blossom is sprayed, so its impossible to wash that pesticide off. Its grown right up in the apple.
So why eat the peel?
To start with, it doubles the amount of fiber that you get from the fruit.
In fact, a raw apple with skin contains up to 332% more vitamin K, 142% more vitamin A, 115% more vitamin C, 20% more calcium, and up to 19% more potassium than a peeled apple. 50% of the phytonutrients are in the skin.
Vitamin K is known as a blood-clotting nutrient, but it also has an important role in bone metabolism and calcium regulation.
Apples contain quercetin, a flavonoid that, in a 2001 Mayo Clinic study, helped prevent the growth of prostate cancer cells. Another study, at Cornell University, showed that phytochemicals in the skin of an apple inhibited the reproduction of colon cancer cells by 43 percent. And the National Cancer Institute reported that foods containing flavonoids may reduce the risk of lung cancer by as much as 50 percent.
There is some evidence that chronic diseases, such as cancer and cardiovascular disease, may occur as a result of oxidative stress. Apple peels have high concentrations of phenolic compounds and may assist in the prevention of chronic diseases
.Several lines of evidence suggest that apples and apple products possess a wide range of biological activities which may contribute to health beneficial effects against cardiovascular disease, asthma and pulmonary dysfunction, diabetes, obesity, and cancer.
The conclusions above are all from new studies published in Pub Med from the National Institute of Health.
In my class I discuss how to pick an apple, what varieties have the most nutrition, how to store them to keep them loaded with nutrition for the longest period of time, I even share a recipe for apple scrap jam.
Look for information on my upcoming course to be rolled out end of April or beginning of May.