By Jordan Roberts, Staff Reporter.
Everyone is familiar with the old adage “an apple a day keeps the doctor away,” but is this claim supported? We know that apples are considered nutritious for their fiber content and relatively high potassium count; but does incorporating an apple into your diet really prevent certain diseases or ailments?
Many of the medical staff at Mclaren Bay Region in Bay City expressed that the “apple a day” phrase has been in circulation for as long as they can remember, and that their parents learned this folk wisdom from their parents. However, if there is such a variety of fruits that contain their own sets of health benefits, why is it the apple that should be consumed daily?
“You’d think it would be an orange, for the vitamin C, or a banana for the potassium,” says Stephanie Schnell, a supervisor for Radiology at Mclaren. “I’m not sure where it [An apple a day…] came from; it was probably before pharmaceuticals and modern medicines were used.”
Mclaren’s cardiac surgeons expressed that the “apple a day” idiom isn’t without merit, explaining that it is important to eat fruits and vegetables, as well as exercising daily. However, they expanded on this idea stating that preventing certain diseases isn’t as simple as eating an apple a day, musing that you could eat an apple every day and still be a smoker. They concluded the proposition by expressing the importance of variety in a person’s diet, especially when it comes to fruit.
According to Dr. Joseph Czaja, a pathologist at Mclaren, “To my knowledge, I have never heard anything to support that an apple has special properties.” He goes on to explain that a person shouldn’t focus on eating one particular fruit a day, but use portion control and limit how much food we eat daily. “I think it’s more about calorie intake, and roughage (fiber) to help the colon pass things along.”
The origin story of “An apple a day” has been met with contention, and the country it originated from has been debated often. However, Michael Pollan, author of “Botany of Desire,” claims that it started with American farmers and apple plantations.
Pollan states that apples in America were used for the composition of alcohol in the form of hard cider. Pollan writes, “Up until prohibition, an apple grown in America was far less likely to be eaten than to wind up in a barrel of cider.”
However once prohibition gained traction and thwarted the sales of cider, growers crafted a marketing strategy to reinvent the apple’s image as not only delicious, but nutritious.
The apple shouldn’t be dismissed as not being a good source of vitamins and nutrients, however, we should always aim to reevaluate folk wisdom and understand how it affects us in our culture and lifestyles.
Eating an apple a day may not be the healthy lifestyle change you were looking for, but it’s a good start.
