Welcome to Gaia! ::

If you've read my previous posts on food politics, then you may have some idea how often it is that politics, not science, decide what we should and shouldn't be eating.

Recently I've been seeing health articles claim how apples are "low GI" and are "great for blood sugar."

When I see these articles, the first thing I want to know is what were the researchers smoking?

For me, apples are an instant ticket to a blood sugar crash. I eat one apple and within minutes I'm starving and shaky. There are many other individuals with the same problem. They don't dare eat more than only a part of an apple, and only then, with copious amounts of peanut butter on them to offset the sugar.

That indicates to me that apples are anything but good for blood sugar. I don't care if anyone else says apples are "good" for blood sugar; I know a crash when I feel it!

One thing I know about apples is that they're a cheap fruit to produce. Their nutritional content is also relatively poor - compare an apple to almost any other fruit (except maybe bananas and table grapes) and they'll lose out every time in nutritional value.

I suspect another rat in the nutritional field.

Hmm I don't get those crashes that you talk about, but you also need to remember that modern agriculture has super hybridized our food to this sort of "ideal" that apples are super sweet and such. You can grow plants from store bought fruit seeds but if they ever bear fruit it won't taste the same as the apple that you got it from. So big farm + nutritional corruption.

I prefer to get apples from the farm when they're in season. The varieties grown are still modernized but they have more of an obvious flavor than the ones I find in stores which I don't really like to eat, they just seem tasteless and the texture is weird (probably from being shipped over from Chile or wherever)

Probably way better for you.

Another thing that bugs me is that they never tell you what kind of apples they're using. Granny Smith, a tart "pie" apple, probably has way less sugar and therefore less impact. On the other hand, your average sugar-addict will go for the sweetest apples they can find.

We love apples in my house. My middle boy loves them so much that is the only thing he asked for on his birthday. He wanted apple trees. He got three. Believe me when I say none of my boys "crash" when eating them lol

Again, I'm one more person who has never experienced a 'crash' from eating apples. If anything, eating just one apple keeps me from raiding that bag of chips in the pantry for the rest of the night.
In fact...
:: shuffles off to indulge apple craving ::