apples from melting into mush, core the apple and fill the center with sugar or raisins to
absorb the moisture released as the apple cooks. Cutting away a circle of peel at the top will
allow the fruit to swell without splitting the skin.
Red apple skins are colored with red anthocyanin pigments. When an apple is cooked,
the anthocyanins combine with sugars to form irreversible brownish compounds.
How Other Kinds of Processing Affect This Food
Juice. Apple juice comes in two versions: “cloudy” (unfiltered) and “clear” (filtered). Cloudy
apple juice is made simply by chopping or shredding apples and then pressing out and
straining the juice. Clear apple juice is cloudy juice filtered to remove solid particles and then
treated with enzymes to eliminate starches and the soluble fiber pectin. Since 2000, follow-
ing several deaths attributed to unpasteurized apple juice contaminated with E. coli O157:
H7, the FDA has required that all juices sold in the United States be pasteurized to inactivate
harmful organisms such as bacteria and mold. Note: “Hard cider” is a mildly alcoholic bever-
age created when natural enzyme action converts the sugars in apple juice to alcohol; “non-
alcohol cider” is another name for plain apple juice.
Drying. To keep apple slices from turning brown as they dry, apples may be treated with
sulfur compounds that may cause serious allergic reactions in people allergic to sulfites.
Medical Uses and/or Benefits
As an antidiarrheal. The pectin in apple is a natural antidiarrheal that helps solidify stool.
Shaved raw apple is sometimes used as a folk remedy for diarrhea, and purified pectin is an
ingredient in many over-the-counter antidiarrheals.
Lower cholesterol levels. Soluble fiber (pectin) may interfere with the absorption of dietary
fats, including cholesterol. The exact mechanism by which this occurs is still unknown, but
one theory is that the pectins in the apple may form a gel in your stomach that sops up fats
and cholesterol, carrying them out of your body as waste.
Potential anticarcinogenic effects. A report in the April 2008 issue of the journal Nutrition
from a team of researchers at the University of Kaiserslautern, in Germany, suggests that
several natural chemicals in apples, including butyrate (produced naturally when the
pectin in apples and apple juice is metabolized) reduce the risk of cancer of the colon by
nourishing and protecting the mucosa (lining) of the colon.
Adverse Effects Associated with This Food
Intestinal gas. For some children, drinking excess amounts of apple juice produces intestinal
discomfort (gas or diarrhea) when bacteria living naturally in the stomach ferment the sugars
in the juice. To reduce this problem, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that
Apples