An Apple A Day: The Myths, Misconceptions, and Truths About the Foods We Eat - Hardcover

Joe Schwarcz

Joe Schwarcz is director of McGill University's Office for Science and Society in Montreal. He teaches courses on nutrition and the applications of chemistry to everyday life. His informative and entertaining public lectures range from nutritional controversies to the chemistry of love. Schwarcz has received numerous awards, including the Royal Society of Canada's McNeil Award, and is the only non-American to win the American Chemical Society's prestigious Grady-Stack Award. He is the author of six books, including Let Them Eat Flax. He was also the chief consultant for the blockbuster titles Foods That Harm, Foods That Heal and The Healing Power of Vitamins, Minerals and Herbs. A regular guest on Canadian television, and the host of weekly radio shows in Toronto and Montreal, Schwarcz also writes a weekly column for The Gazette in Montreal, where he lives. Visit him at www.joeschwarcz.ca.

Is there a better subject with which to begin a discussion of the relationship between food and health than apples? After all, doesn’t “an apple a day keep the doctor away”? Maybe it does, if you throw it at her! There are no single foods that have magical health properties. There are good diets and there are bad diets. It is certainly possible to have a good diet and never eat apples, just as it is possible to gorge on apples and have a horrible diet. What really matters in terms of nutrition is the net effect produced by all of the chemicals that wend their way into our bodies from the food we eat. Yes, chemicals. I can practically see those eyebrows being raised. It may seem unusual to see the word “chemical” without an adjective like “poisonous,” in front of it. Actually, without appropriate context, “toxic chemical” is a meaningless term. . . . Everything in the world is made of chemicals, and if you restricted yourself to a diet free of chemicals, you would be dining in a vacuum! With that in mind, let’s investigate the chemicals in an apple. So tell me, would you like some nail polish remover in your diet? Or rubbing alcohol? Then have an apple! Yes, all apples contain acetone and isopropanol. And if these don’t sound toxic enough, you can throw in some cyanide. It’s there too. Added by nature, not by humans! Should you then be worried about eating apples? Of course not! The amounts of these chemicals are too small to be of any consequence. Apples, as already mentioned, contain over 300 naturally occurring compounds, and whatever effect the fruit has on our health is a reflection of all of these.