Fairytale Princess Snow White was lured to her doom with a bright red apple, but what about in real life?
Do you love crisp green apples that taste refreshingly sour? Or would you prefer red, sweet apples? Is an apple the same as an apple or does the color say something about it? Nutrient content out of?
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An Apple a day…
Although apples consist of 85 percent water, they still contain a lot of nutrients, namely around 30 vitamins and trace elements and 150 plant ingredients and only around 60 calories. On average, every German eats 17 kilos of apples per year.
The most popular apple variety in Germany is called Elstar. Sweet and sour, crunchy, super juicy – and partly red. But what does the color of an apple actually say about its nutritional value?
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More vitamins in red apples
If you want to consume as many nutrients as possible, you should follow the signal color red and choose red apples.
The popular Braeburn apples, for example, have up to 35 milligrams of vitamin C per 100 grams. A Granny Smith only has a third of that.
Anthocyanins for healthy vessels
Red apples contain significantly more anthocyanins than green apples.
This substance keeps the vessels healthy and is also found in other intensely colored fruits and vegetables such as cherries, blueberries, blue grapes and red cabbage. They bind free radicals that arise during oxidative stress and cause our cells to age prematurely.
The degree of ripeness is also crucial for the anthocyanin content of apples. Apples harvested when ripe from the region contain significantly more than those harvested green, which travel halfway around the world when well cooled to be sold months later.
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Polyphenols in tannin-rich apple varieties
Polyphenols are also particularly abundant in red apples. These phytochemicals lower blood pressure and have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects. The more bitter an apple, the more tannins and therefore polyphenols it contains.
Traditional apple varieties such as Berlepsch, also known as Gold-Renette, as well as Jonagold and Braeburn, which all have an orange-red skin, have a lot to offer in this regard.
Designer varieties like Golden Delicious, Pink Lady and Fuji may look delicious, but nutritionally they are little more than sweet water.
That’s why you should prefer old varieties, for example Cox Orange, Boskoop, Gloster as well as Gravensteiner or Alkmene.
They have more vitamins and other nutrients to offer and are also less likely to cause allergies than the newer varieties, which are tuned for fast growth and high yields.
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