How Do You Like Them Apples?

Most people like them very much. So much so that it's estimated the average American consumer eats about 42 pounds of apples per year - 16 pounds of fresh and 26 pounds of processed apples. The most common uses of processed apples include juice, applesauce, baby food, cider and pie filling.

Apples are the official state fruit of Rhode Island, New York, Washington, and West Virginia. The apple blossom is the official state flower of Arkansas and Michigan.

We love them for their taste, aroma, crispness and color. But there are lots of great, but less thought of reasons to love apples. Apples have no fat, cholesterol or sodium, and contain small amounts of potassium, which may promote heart health, help maintain healthy blood pressure and a healthy weight. One apple contains one-fifth of the recommended daily requirement for cholesterol-busting and cancer-fighting fiber.

Here are a few apple varieties worth hunting down at a farm near you:

Jonagold is a blend of Jonathan and Golden Delicious apples. They are both tangy and sweet, with a yellow-green base and a blush stripe. Jonagold is excellent both for eating fresh and for cooking.

 Winesap is an apple with old-fashioned flavor. The Winesap has a spicy, tart, almost wine-like flavor that makes it the cider maker's first choice. Violet red in color, it's great as a snack and in salads.

Gravenstein is of German origin and came to America from England in the early 1800's. This variety was planted by many a century and a half ago, and is one of the best cooking apples ever grown. It retains its firmness when cooked and is excellent to eat fresh too. A handsome greenish yellow fruit with red stripes, Gravenstein belongs in every apple enthusiast's collection.

Roxbury Russet is the oldest named variety in America, from Roxbury, Massachusetts, from about 1640. This apple is sweet, crisp, and a very long keeper. But, although an extremely high quality eating apple, it is as a cooking and cider variety that Roxbury really excels.

And here are a few little-known apple facts:

* There are about 2500 known varieties of apples grown in the U.S., although we mostly find only a few on our grocery shelves.

* Archeologists have found evidence that humans have been enjoying apples since at least 6500 B.C.

* Apple seeds contain small amounts of arsenic.

* Planting an apple seed from a particular apple will not produce a tree of that same variety. The seed is a cross of the tree the fruit was grown on and the variety that was the cross pollinator.

* Apples are a member of the rose family.