'Apple Cores Are a Myth'

[AdamSmith]

Apple Cores Are a Myth
You can eat the whole apple. Americans could be throwing away $13.2 billion.
James Hamblin
The Atlantic
Nov 15 2013, 12:14 PM ET

What do you think an apple core is? What's the thing we throw away?

It is a ghost. If you eat your apples whole, you are a hero to this ghost. If you do not, you are barely alive. Come experience vitality.



Earlier this year, in "How to Eat Apples Like a Boss," a video by Foodbeast, the Internet was promised the gift of confidence in apple-eating. Elie Ayrouth ate an apple starting at the bottom, proceeding to up to the top, and finishing with a wink to the camera, as bosses do. Eating as such, Foodbeast said, the core "disappears."

I do them one better and say that it never existed. The core is a product of society, man. There is a thin fibrous band, smaller in diameter than a pencil and not bad to the taste. If you eat your apple vertically, it is not noticeable.

There are usually a couple seeds toward the top, which are easy to swallow, though it's probably a better idea to spit them because they contain a substance called amygdalin. That can release a small amount of hydrogen cyanide when digested. God/nature wants those seeds on the ground, not in our colons. You would have to eat a ton of apple seeds for it to kill you, but I'm not here to coax you guys into testing your bodies' limits in metabolizing cyanide.

I also don't advocate doing anything "like a boss," much less professing it, much less actively aspiring to it by watching YouTube infotorials, but this is an imperative behavioral modification. If you want to feel like a hero by doing essentially nothing, think of it in terms of the national deficit and world hunger. By eating your apples in their entirety, you are a boss in the most endearing sense—not in that the practice confers swagger or panache, but because you are actively part of a meaningful solution.


Google image: apple core; see: waste. Don't google apple core myth. They will come for you.

If each of us eats an apple a day, as we all do, and we are all wasting 30 percent of our apples at $1.30 per pound, that's about $42 wasted per person per year—which is $13.2 billion annually, thrown in the trash or fed to pigs.

With that kind of money, we could rebuild the Gulf Coast after a hurricane the size of Rita or buy an entirely new Mark Zuckerberg.

As a health writer I make a point of not trying to tell people how to live their lives. Today I make an exception. This is the cause I will champion to my grave. I was a guest on MSNBC recently to talk about "chicken" nuggets, ostensibly how disturbing they are as a concept, and I endured criticism for being too ambivalent. Eat what you like, in moderation. Chicken nuggets are not my war. On this point I abandon moderation. Bring me on your television programs, and I will eat an apple in its entirety, and I will disparage anyone who does not do the same. As a nation we must redefine apple consumption, lest it define us.




http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/11/apple-cores-are-a-myth/281531/

[lookin]

If each of us eats an apple a day, as we all do, and we are all wasting 30 percent of our apples at $1.30 per pound, that's about $42 wasted per person per year—which is $13.2 billion annually, thrown in the trash or fed to pigs.

So what's next? Potato skins??

[RA1]

I always eat potato skins, even mash them into mashed potatoes as well as eat a whole baked potato. Next you will tell me you peel tomatoes.

Best regards,

RA1

[MsGuy]

Drop the tomatoes into boiling water for 3 or 4 seconds, shock them in ice water and the skin slips off faster than Hito out a restroom window when it's play time on a date with AS.

[lookin]

Actually, I usually eat only the skins and leave the white part of the potato for the curly-tailed piggies. Though they won't get any of the butter or sour cream, I've been known to let a chive or two get through.

[Guest EXPAT]

That's why I cut my apples in slices then I eat the entire thing except the stems.

[AdamSmith]

I learned eating baked potato skins from a high school sweetheart whose family had emigrated South from Yankeedom, so brought all manner of strange habits. I then found that made the rock-salt-rubbed baked potatoes served by Red Lobster into the most palatable thing on their menu.

Back to apples, David Souter's clerks noted it as one more sign of his frugal ways that lunch was always a cup of yogurt and an apple eaten core, seeds and all.

[Guest Hoover42]

So what's next? Potato skins??

LOL at that! These piggies won't give up their potato skins without a fight!

[RA1]

Don't I get any credit for, pardon the expression, being the straight man for MsGuy, lookin and others?

I do peel carrots, trim onions, but eat cucumbers skin and all. The list goes on.

Best regards,

RA1

[AdamSmith]

Nobody gets any credit around here. Haven't you noticed?

Cash only.

[RA1]

Will my debit card work?

Best regards,

RA1

[TampaYankee]

I'll leave the cores to the connoisseurs and tightwads. I'm with the rest of you deep into potato skins. Lovem.