Food

They’re sweet, crunchy, and the perfect vehicle for getting peanut butter, chocolate, and cheese into your mouth. What’s not to love about apples?While you probably know the fruit’s myriad health benefits, odds are you aren’t aware of these cool (and very random) apple facts. 1. Apples are actually a part of the rose, or Rosaceae family of plants. This includes many fruit plants such as pears, almonds, apricots, cherries, plums, raspberries, peaches and more. 2. Despite the fact that only the crab apple is native to North America, there are over 2,500 hundred different different types of apples grown in North America today. 3. Johnny Appleseed (real name John Chapman) was yes, a real person, and yes, he planted apple trees all over parts of the United States, but he wasn't poor, and he wasn't being nice. Back then, land could be claimed if you created a permanent homestead, and one of the ways to do that was to plant 50 trees to start an orchard. Chapman planted trees, and then later would sell "his" land to people. 4. Though apples are naturally high in fruit sugar (like, really high), they also contain so much fiber that it doesn't really cause a blood sugar spike, and they actually have a very low glycemic index. This is why applesauce is softened and used as an alternative to refined sugar in some sugar free recipes. Apples are actually considerably better for you blood-sugar wise than many other fruits, such as bananas. 5. By the way, the apples that Johnny Appleseed/John Chapman planted? They weren't for eating. They were small and hard and gross. BUT, they were great for cider and applejack, which until prohibition was the alcoholic drink of choice for much of the States, particularly the rural parts. Sadly, prohibition meant that the government chopped down most of Chapman's apple trees...because government knows best. 6. Apples - apple flesh, apple juice, and apple cider vinegar - contain malic acid, which can actually assist in helping your body break up and dissolve gallstones. (However, if you think you have gallstones, you should still, 1,000%, go to, you know, a DOCTOR for that.) 7. "As American As Apple Pie!" is kind of a dumb saying because apple pie isn't American; it's European. The first recipe for apple pie dates back to the 1300's, from England. Apples - at least the kind fit for eating - aren't even native to North America, so how could the pie be? Also, you weren't supposed to eat the crust. Lacking a decent tin or pyrex in the 1300's, a container, or "coffin," made of flour, lard, and water was merely a cooking vessel for the delicious baked apples inside. 8. If you were to eat one apple a day, it would take you over 20 years to try the over 7,000 varieties grown worldwide. 9. Apples have a large place in Mythology. Not only do people think that Eve ate an apple in the Garden of Eden (despite no Holy Text mentioning an apple...) In Norse Mythology, apples gave eternal youth. In Greek Mythology the goddess Eris uses a Golden apple to start the ball rolling on the the Trojan War. Celtic symbolism considers the apple blossom a symbol of fertility, and in Disney Lore, the Poison Apple is what the wicked queen gives Snow White to put her to sleep. 10. One average sized apple pie (9in) takes around two pounds of apples, which is around 4 apples if they're very large, or up to six if they're on the medium-small side. It's always better to buy one more apple than you need for a pie. Better to have a snack the next day than be an apple short. 11. 25% of an apple's volume is air, which is why they float when you drop them in water. This is why we go bobbing for apples, instead of drowning for apples. 12. "Apple" used to be a generic term for any fruit that wasn't a berry, at least through the 1600's, which is when the earliest English Translations of the Bible were made. Which may be why people think Eve ate an Apple. 13.Apples can help give you a lovely and glowing complexion. Apple Cider Vinegar makes an amazing toner, not only because it breaks up the oil and grossness that causes acne and breakouts, but it also balances skin's pH levels, which in turn will keep your skin from overproducing oil in the first place. 14. Yes, apple seeds DO contain cyanide, which is in fact a deadly poison. However, you'd need to really chew up and ingest about 200 seeds/10 apple cores in order to, um, die from it. So don't do that. 15. It takes FOREVER for apple trees to start producing fruit. A full sized apple tree can take as many as ten years from seed to fruit. If you're a dog, that's nearly your entire life. 16. Apples have zero fat, zero sodium, zero cholesterol, and about 80 calories, and if you're doing a "low sugar" diet, can really help curb cravings for sweets. Credits: list25 Share this story on Facebook with your friends. Related: 40 Really Cool Facts About Air Force One 11 Weird But True Facts About ‘Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood’

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