So if you’re like me, September is synonymous with fresh, crisp and delicious apples. When I was a little girl we waited for that first big early fall batch. My mom always bought them in boxes. 
I would shine them up with a damp cloth for the table. To this day there is nothing to compare with those deliciously crispy autumn apples. sigh ……
When I was young momming I wanted to provide the same experience for my kids. Every year I bought a few cases of fresh apples, straight from the orchard. We looked forward to it. It made fall worth it. My kids are gone now and I am not buying cases of apples. I am buying them by the bag at the grocery store, and I noted for several years that the fall apples I brought home were …. well, they were disappointing. No matter what store, no matter what type of apple, they were repeatedly disappointing and I began to suspect that my memories had led me astray. Why did I think apples were so wonderful this time of year anyway? Or worse, perhaps I had simply lost my taste for them. ….
I discovered a few years back that in most cases the apples on our supermarket shelves can be up to a year old. whaaaaat!!! Sometimes over a year old. In fact, the apples you’re buying this week are almost assuredly from the previous years’ harvest. Why? Well, think about it. If you want to eat apples in March, where are they gonna come from? You know that apples in North America generally ripen between August and October. When you buy an apple in May, you know that it had to have been picked last fall. Its a sign of our times that we want to have everything ALL the time. Well, there’s a cost to that sense of entitlement we’ve gotten used to.
Within weeks from harvest the natural process of deterioration will continue to break down an apple. According to the US Department of Agriculture, apples stored in temperature controlled, low humidity conditions with low levels of oxygen and high levels of carbon dioxide can be stored for months before being consumed. To extend the fruit’s post-storage quality it is sprayed with an ethylene blocking colourless gaseous compound called 1-methylcyclopropene. This same chemical is used to lessen the “de-greening of broccoli, browning of lettuce and bitterness of carrots” says USDA.
see source https://agresearchmag.ars.usda.gov/2007/oct/apples
I don’t want to come across as one of those conspiracy theorists who believe everyone’s out to wreck my day. And I find absolutely no fault in the concept of prolonging the life of produce. After all, our great grandparents (grandparents in my case) had root cellars for this express purpose. Heck, its why we have fridges. And I appreciate having the produce variety I’ve become accustomed to. Really I do. And I’m not on a soap box claiming that there is something inherently wrong with the process science has determined is the optimal way to ensure the masses eat apples all year long. But even if extending the life of apples is perfectly safe, a freshly picked apple is always going to be much better for you than one that was picked six or eight months ago.
So if you want to eat apples all year long, then you can be grateful to food science that makes it possible. But as with everything else in life, there is always that ‘cost’ we mentioned above. And that cost is nutrition. Apples are nutritional powerhouses. Remember the old adage we grew up with “an apple a day keeps the doctor away“. Apples are particularly rich in a type of antioxidant called polyphenols. But these antioxidants (as with most) are volatile and they dissipate over time. A year old apple retains close to zero of its all of its original antioxidant properties. That is something to take note of.
It is difficult to impossible to determine which supermarket apples are freshest until after they’re purchased and brought home. The people working in the produce department won’t be able to tell you. Often times the produce manager won’t be able to tell you either. The apples all come from legitimate sources. Those sources just happen to be the storage facility, not the orchard.
Sometimes even your farmer’s market vendor doesn’t know when the apples were picked. Unless they picked them themselves, or saw them picked, they probably can’t guarantee that they didn’t come from a quonset. So how can you know? Well, as with all fruits and vegetables – taste, colour, and texture are good indicators of nutritional integrity. You know how a fresh home grown tomato has so much more flavour than a store bought tomato? Same thing. There is something to be said for that wonderful crispness and unmistakable taste of a fresh apple. Trust your taste buds. If you are disappointed in the apple you’re eating, there’s probably a good reason why you should be. Problem is, we don’t taste the apples till we get home – purchase already made. argh …. Inevitably it seems that if I take the cautious route and only buy a few, the apples are terrific. If I take a chance and buy a big bag, they’re yucky. . . . . Or maybe that just happens to me.
If you don’t want to play that guessing game, how do you make sure the apple you’re eating is the BEST with the MOST nutritional value possible? Well, the answer is not very scientific. Simply buy your apples in season and eat them in season, and where possible, buy locally – so you can be sure they are “in the season“. If you have even a small yard (even in a townhouse), you can – in almost any zone, grow apples. There are some now that are known-hardy even in Alaska. I have a gorgeous, hardy apple tree in my backyard. Its been here longer than we’ve been here and its in the perfect spot. Right beside the play-centre for our grandkids, providing shade for the swings. The problem is that it has yucky apples. We’ve been sorely tempted to get rid of it many times as the apples just fall to the ground and make a mess. They’re not good eating apples. Don’t last very long. They make good juice and sauce but you’ve got to get on them immediately or they’re so bruised you don’t want them anymore. However, I recently learned, some pretty exciting news. I can take cuttings from other apple trees which I like much better and graft them onto this proven-hardy tree! I am super looking forward to next spring to do that exact thing. Which ones? I plan to graft in these varieties that I have tasted and talked to several local growers about: Norkent, Collette, Edmonton Borris, and September Ruby. These are all hardy in zone 3, and delicious and crisp, with various features that appeal to me.
Whatever you decide to do about apples, don’t fall into that mindset that you should be able to get (and eat) apples all year round. Why? What grand eternal rule says that eating apples twelve months a year is a basic human right? Most of us freely use the word “fresh” to describe the produce in the produce department of the grocery store. More accurate adjectives we could be using to describe them are “perishable or raw” or maybe “cold storage“, because as we’re learning, store bought fruits and vegetables are not all exactly “fresh” are they? Bottom line: if you choose to eat an apple in April, then simply adjust your expectations nutritionally. And for heavens sake don’t use that word “fresh” – because it simply isn’t so. This is true of all fruits and vegetables: the less “fresh” they are, the less nutrients they contain. Its okay. We can live with that. Its not gonna wreck our lives. Adjust.
I decided a few years ago that I was tired of being disappointed in the food I eat. I choose for the most part, to not buy apples past Christmas time. I decided to eat oranges in the cold months because that is the season in which they are harvested in North America. For the most part, I decided to eat only the tomatoes I grow. After all, “it’s difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato”. (lettering above the kitchen door leading out to my garden) And in those off seasons, I choose to eat the next best thing to ‘fresh’ (REAL fresh I mean) which is freeze dried, because freeze drying retains the nutritional integrity and value of fruits and vegetables. Of course, it all depends on how quickly the fruit can be freeze dried after harvest, and what the process and dedication to quality the producer has, but that’s a conversation for another time. As for the produce department version of fresh, I say “for the most part” because I am lucky. I live in the same society you do, and I know these foods are available to me almost daily. There might be a moment I decide to go ahead and buy a few – out of season. Simply because I can. – smile –
Cindy Suelzle
September 2018