The good and the bad of Apples in your diet
June 30, 2011 | 11:26 am
(Updated: January 17, 2013 | 3:54 pm)
If an apple a day can keep the doctor away, three can send the pounds away, provided you follow an ingenious diet. Lots of good diets include fresh fruit for snacks and desert, but eating 3 apples a day focuses on having an apple prior to every main meal. It takes the edge off a ravenous appetite.
Eating an apple before meals helped with feeling full, and they come in such a variety – Fujis are sweet, Granny Smiths are tart, perfect for you particular craving.
So, are apples magic? In a way, yes, because they’re a good source of pectin, a soluble fiber that helps lower cholesterol and aids in appetite control. A medium apple has 4 grams of fiber. You might think you’re already getting plenty of fiber, but much of it may be the insoluble type, also know as roughage, that comes from bran, whole wheat and green vegetables.
We also need the soluble fiber. The type of fiber dissolves in water and becomes gummy. Sources of the soluble fiber pectin are apples, citrus fruits like oranges and grapefruit, and carrots. Sources of the other type of soluble fiber, gums, are oats, dried beans and other legumes, and barley.
Apples are one of the easiest and tastiest ways to get both types of fiber (the insoluble fiber is mostly in the peel). The apple is a convenience food. We’re absolutely a fast food nation, and the apple requires no preparation. You can eat it on the go without slopping on yourself.
Eating apples isn’t a license to pig out, but it’s part of a pattern of healthy behavior that can help you control your eating and prevent obesity.
I tried this once! And for the record it has more caffeine content than any other fruit on earth. They said an apple a day will keep the doctor away. Ironically it was true but just to remind you I would have it before going to bed.
i know this is posted over a year ago, but when you said, apples and caffeine, i thought “wow, i never knew that!” then i started searching…How Much Caffeine Is in a Typical Cup of Coffee?
“A standard 16-oz. cup of home-brewed coffee has about 266 mg of caffeine in it. In comparison, a typical cup of tea has about 50 to 100 mg of caffeine, while a typical bottled soft drink has about 100 to 200 mg. Although it would be hard to overdose on caffeine, it can be lethal, with death reported above a dose of 150 to 200 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. One kilogram equals about 2.2 lbs., so that would be about 70 cups of coffee for a average-sized American man.
How Much Caffiene Is in an Apple?
Apples are a good source of many nutrients. For example, a typical small apple has 12 percent of your daily recommended intake of fiber, 10 percent of your daily recommended intake of vitamin C, and trace amounts of minerals such as calcium, potassium, and manganese. However, apples do not contain any caffeine.
The Origin of the Question
Googling “apples caffeine coffee” turns up several pages of links to sites where people have asked the question “Does an apple contain more caffeine than coffee?” The misconception seems to stem from the fact that apples have sugar in them — an average small apple has about 13 g of it — and that people are equating the energy boost they get from a cup of coffee with the energy boost they presumably get from eating an apple.
Apples, Coffee and Sugar Content
Based on the discussion above, a more appropriate question might be “Does an apple have more sugar than a typical cup of coffee?” Presuming you put one to two sugar packets in your typical cup of coffee, and that each sugar packet contains — as most do — about 4 g of sugar, the answer is yes, a typical apple contains more sugar than a typical cup of coffee. However, if you compare the glycemic index of apples and typical table sugar — the glycemic index being a measurement of how quickly an ingested glucose load finds its way into your bloodstream, and hence a measure of how quickly you feel the effects of ingestion — you’ll see that apples, at 38 out of 100, are about half as strong as table sugar, at 68. So if you’re looking for a quick energy kick, a cup of coffee is likely to get you there faster. However, an apple is probably your healthiest option.”
Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/article/276790-does-an-apple-have-more-caffeine-than-coffee/#ixzz28d8muZKS
Good points Rick. I’m glad that I found your post. I would love to read more from you on this.