The best example is with red delicious apples purchased at your local grocery store. The apples have whitish areas/stains on the outside skin, and on red apples the white stains are especially visible. It is difficult to remove the stains even when trying to rub them off under running water. When soaked in water for 10 mins the whitish areas become even more visible. I assume they are wax, and the type of wax used on apples supposed to be water soluble and easily removable and these stains one is NOT. I do not want to eat apples with pesticides and other dirt under the wax.
These stains are on apples no matter where you buy them. Is there any way to remove the wax quickly and reliably? Does it make sense to peel each apple?
It's easy to remove. Get yourself a fingernail brush that you'll use just for fruits & vegetables. Put a drop or two of dish soap on the brush and scrub, then rinse (obviously). It won't hurt the apple, but it will remove the wax. Besides seeing that it's gone, you'll notice that the skin suddenly has an apple smell.
I agree with you about the pesticides, but the wax is a good thing. Without it, it's unlikely any domestically grown apples would last more than a month or three. Red Delicious have a thicker skin, and might go well without wax, but they're only good for cattle feed, so who cares?
"Doug Kanter" wrote in news:uwVWf.4384$ snipped-for-privacy@news02.roc.ny:
this works, although i use a washrag & not a brush. one should remember that apples also have a natural waxy coating on the skin, in addion to that which is applied for storage. my guess is that the whitish area on the skin is the natural wax bloom under the artificially applied wax. the bloom would get larger if the apple was soaking.
geez Doug, it's bad enough you hate dogs. now you want to subject poor innocent cows to the abomination that is a Delicious apple? you evil, twisted man! ;) the only use for a Delicious apple is starting a compost pile... lee
Delicious apples are also good ballast for florists' fruit baskets - they keep the baskets stable so they don't tip over and damage the worthwhile fruit, if any. :-)
Dish liquids contain surfactants that are chosen principally as oil-in-water emulsifiers. They are *not* wax solvents, and are only OK wettng agents. And although when dissolved in water they have good wetting properties, their surface and interfacial tensions are too high to form an aqueous "sheet" of liquid on a paraffin wax surface, let alone polyethylene, which is easier to wet than paraffin.
There is at least one product on the market that is formulated as a food grade wetting agent rather than as an oil-in-water emulsifier. I've tested one of them on red delicious apples and it worked quite well: Earth Friendly Products 'Fruit & Vegetable Wash'. Ingredients: water, surfactant, citric acid
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the manufacturer is very secretive about the name of the surfactant used in the formulation. Certainly they did not invent that surfactant either. I have some hunches about the possible surfactants that it could be. I know quite a bit about them.
It's odd though, how well they work at removing the wax, although the brush is an equal partner in this process. Believe me when I tell you that the was
*IS* removed. If you'd like to repeat the experiement, be sure to use Dawn dish liquid, original verson.
They may not taste as good as other apple varieties, but AFAIK red delicious skins contain a far greater concentration of the antioxidant flavonoid named quercetin, than does any other variety of apple. This is also true of red onions with respect to yellow/white varieties.
Other important sources of quercetin: black/green teas, cranberry, red wine, brocolli, kale, spinach, whole buckwheat flour, undutched cocoa powder
Just did some quick research. Apples are washed clean of dust and agricultural surface contamination before they are coated. The type of wax used on apples is not paraffin, which is derived from petroleum, but carnauba, which comes from the leaf of a particular species of Brazilian palm tree (Copernica cerifera). The carnauba is dissolved in a solvent named morpholine, which functions as a coupling agent between organic and aqueous systems. Thus the solution of carnauba in morpholine is miscible in water, which enables the wax coating to be applied by an aqueous spray at room temperature or via an aqueous dip bath. The liquid coating is dried quickly by hot air treatment. All of the aforemented steps are done via a multi-step automated process, without human contact.
I can now understand how Dawn Original can be helpful in removing the coating, as carnauba is easier to wet than paraffin. However, I've tested some inferior brands of fruit/vegetable spray cleaners for the consumer market, and even some of these dedicated use products were unable to produce "sheet wetting" on a coated apple. I didn't bother to further test them via scrubbing, as I want a cleaner that I could simply spray on and rinse off, without much labor.
Apparently there are trace amounts of morpholine residue in the predominately carnauba coating. However I think the main health hazard is not the morpholine, but the contamination from human contact which occurs when:
1) apples are loaded into the store bins and
2) are inspected/handled by customers.
Certainly it is best to completely completely strip away the wax coating rather than clean the surface of that coating, as not only would the morpholine trace be removed, but also whatever contaminates that have been trapped *into* the soft coating while the apples were in the store.
Whenever I see the smaller cheaper apples that are prebagged in plastic by the grower or silo, I choose those. I figure that they must be cleaner than individually displayed apples. Costco stores now offer large premium quality apples at sharply discounted prices that are sold in clear plastic clamshell packaging. But if not for the fact that my area also has a waste-to-energy plant ("burn plant" for generating electricity) I would never buy those.
Red delicious are still my least favorite apple for flavor, and I used to avoid them for.. I can't remember how far back! It was only after learning of their quercetin content last autumn that I began choosing them once in a while. There are 3 or 4 aspects about them that make them less enjoyable.
My favorite apple is rarely available, and when it is, it is by name only, as the cultivar has been hybridized over the years and bears little resemblance to the one that we loved as kids: Stayman winesap. Although its skin was thick, and dull red, with little natural wax, and with unattractive scaly patches, it was positively the sweetest, crispest apple. They were commonly used for cooking, because many people detested their skin, which is removed for cooked recipes anyway. The modern cultivar of the Stayman winesap usually has been x-bred (possibly with Braeburn, or who know what) for the purpose of looks and to make the skin thinner, resulting in an inferior flavor that I do not prefer over other varieties. I don't think I've found a true original Stayman winesap in well over 10 years.
"Knack" wrote in news:7IDXf.11066$ snipped-for-privacy@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net:
oh my ghods, NO! a Cortland is NOT one of those nasty mealy MacIntoshes. ew! how could you *possibly* confuse the two?! a Courtland is crisp, with a tender (but not too tender) skin, & sweet with just the right amount of acid bite. good for eating *and* baking. a MacIntosh is a nasty, mealy, hard skinned apple suitable only for apple sauce. they're just a step up from Red Delicious. lee
Ha :-) Well, must admit that its been a while since I had one. I'll look for them next time that I'm visiting in NJ later this month, but unlike apples from Wasington and BC, their off-season availability (from controlled atmosphere storage) is hard to come by.
oh my ghods, NO! a Cortland is NOT one of those nasty mealy MacIntoshes. ew! how could you *possibly* confuse the two?! a Courtland is crisp, with a tender (but not too tender) skin, & sweet with just the right amount of acid bite. good for eating *and* baking. a MacIntosh is a nasty, mealy, hard skinned apple suitable only for apple sauce. they're just a step up from Red Delicious. lee
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1984-George Orwell
Ha :-) Well, must admit that its been a while since I had one. I'l look for them next time that I'm visiting in NJ later this month, bu unlike apples from Wasington and BC, their off-season availability (fro controlled atmosphere storage) is hard to come by.
i think everyone has their likes and dislikes of certain kinds o apples. we have an apple tree in our front yard that is supposed t grow 5 different kinds on one tree but so far the only apples we hav had are golden delicious. they are really firm and surprisingly sweet we are hoping that more grow on the tree this year :). yup i know som people are going eeeeewwwww but here we eat a lot of different kinds o fruits and just love them including other kinds of apples. but i a still really happy to have the ones that we have been blessed wit whether we have a few or a lot its still nice to have them. enjoy you apples everyone. cyaaaaa, sockiescat
In New Jersey, your best bet for decent apples at this time of year will likely be a Wegman's store. Their apples come from Fowler Farms, near Rochester, and they go to great lengths to extend their storage quality. You can find one of the NJ stores at
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