‘An apple a day keeps the doctor away’ is more than just a rhyme

Christine Manby explores the many health benefits of this low-carbon, highly versatile fruit – but it’s probably better eaten without cookies

Illustration by Tom Ford

When I was a child, we lived in a modern house that had been built on land that had once been part of an orchard. Two of the orchard’s trees remained in the garden. They were an apple tree and a Victoria plum. Dad subsequently planted a pear tree and a cooking apple. They were beautiful trees and always generous as the summer turned into early autumn. I loved to eat sweet, dark-purple fruit straight from the branches of the Victoria plum, though the wasps that liked the fruit as much as I did were a menace.

The apples offered – to my mind – less glamorous bounty but there were years when the old apple tree yielded what seemed like a thousand fruit. Dad would climb up the ladder and pass them down to us. We’d fill boxes and boxes. We children could help ourselves to as many as we liked. But unlike the plums, I never wanted more than a single apple at a sitting. Once the fruit bowl in the kitchen was full and bulging bags had been given away to the neighbours, there were still hundreds left over. But they were never discarded. Those were the apples to be wrapped for the winter.

Wrapping apples was not a job that could be rushed. Each apple had to have its own individual newspaper coat, lest one of them decide to turn bad and spread its rotten influence while we weren’t looking. Once the apples were wrapped, they were put to bed in layers in boxes that went up into the chilly loft, from whence they would be retrieved, a dozen at a time, over the winter.

Those mid-winter apples seemed to my younger self like the most boring “pass the parcel” gifts ever. “Oh look, it’s an apple!” But Dad always took the time to prepare the fruit so beautifully, readying them for his fussy daughters by peeling away every last piece of skin before cutting them into eighths, which were just the right size for two bites.

In our family, it’s still considered a gesture of love to peel an apple and cut it into pieces. Dad did it for me until I was well into my forties. Now I do it for my mum and occasionally my nephews too. My apple pieces never look quite as neat as Dad’s did but the thought is there.

That said, I don’t buy apples very often. My head is all too often turned by the flashy fruitiness of mandarins and out-of-season strawberries. But apples are at their best at this time of year and they have much to recommend them. Blueberries and goji berries have got nothing on our very British superfruit (which originally came from Kazakhstan, as it happens).

The season for British apples is from September to February. They’re inexpensive. They have a low carbon footprint, assuming you’re buying them in the UK. They come in hundreds of varieties, with different textures, tastes and colours, so you’re bound to find a variety you like. They’re rich in antioxidants, which can help mitigate the effects of pollution and help prevent heart disease. They contain vitamins A, C, K and B7. They’re a good source of potassium which can help to lower blood pressure. They’re high in fibre too.

One of the types of fibre found in apples is called pectin. It’s a soluble fibre. Recent research suggest that pectin may give apples it’s real superpowers. A study in the European Journal of Nutrition found that in healthy volunteers, eating whole apples could lower cholesterol by preventing the build-up of cholesterol plaques on artery walls. Meanwhile, in 2011, a research group from the department of nutrition at Florida State University, led by Bahram H Arjmandi, found that women who ate 75g of dried apple daily for six months saw an average 23 per cent decrease in LDL cholesterol – the bad kind – in tandem with an average 4 per cent increase of the “good” HDL type.

However, the cholesterol-lowering benefits these studies found were not replicated by the daily consumption of apple juice. While apple juice may count as one of your five a day, the juicing process strips it of many of the benefits of eating the whole fruit. Apple juice is high in sugar but because they are high in fibre, whole apples are low on the glycaemic index. This is what makes them the ideal snack food if you’re trying to control your weight.

No cookie without an apple first. Surely, I could not eat both. Turns out I could

I used to be one of those lucky people who never had to worry about her weight. These days, not so much. Working from home makes it very easy to snack all day long. The kettle is within my eyeline, and what’s a cup of tea without a biscuit? Especially when the biscuits are made by friend Diane, the queen of the chocolate chip and peanut butter cookie. Last time I saw Diane, she sent me home with enough cookies to feed eight. For a year. I tucked them away in a biscuit tin but every time I stood by the kitchen counter, I heard their siren call.

I’d picked up a bag of apples in the supermarket earlier in the week. They were in danger of going uneaten while the cookies went straight from lips to hips. So I made a deal with myself that I could eat as many cookies as I wanted but only if I ate an apple first. The price of each cookie was an apple. That was the only rule. The theory being that if I filled up on an apple – pectin has the effect of making you feel full – I might not want the cookie anymore. It was a variation on the “Apple Diet” by nutritionist Monica Grenfell, which can apparently help you lose 5lbs a week. Admittedly, on Grenfell’s diet, the apples are largely “instead of” food not used “as a supplement to”.

Still I kept to my bargain. No cookie without an apple first. Surely, I could not eat both. Turns out I could. I underestimated the power of a peanut butter cookie from the kitchen of Diane Palliser. I was quickly up to six apples/cookies a day. Fortunately, I have a new strategy for giving up the cookies. I’m going to take inspiration from another episode in my childhood.

There was a year when Dad got hold of a job lot of Arctic rolls from an acquaintance who worked at the local Walls Ice Cream factory. He came home with dozens of the things. Maybe even a hundred. Within a fortnight of having that synthetic sponge-wrapped vanilla ice cream for dessert every single day, my sister and I were begging for apples again. I haven’t eaten Arctic roll since. So, if I just eat all the cookies in one sick-making go... Then I will finish the apples.