The Saga and the Jorney of the Red Delcious Apple

This feature has two distinct parts to it. One is the benefits of a Red Delicious Apple if one is eaten on a regular basis. The second is a human interest story about our lives at Peacedale Farms when we first purchased it and the struggles in keeping it. The Red Delicious Apple played a large part in this and you should be intrigued with the Providence that appeared to be involved in it. We hope that you enjoy this feature and put it to good use..

You will be delighted to experience the results from adding a Red Delicious apple to your diet regimen every day. There are about 100 million bushel of Red Delicious apples produced in this country each year. There are about 100 apples per bushel. This calculates to 10 billion Red Delicious apples consumed every year. As they say "That is a lot of Apples". Do you think this attraction to this particular variety is just because they eat good? There are a lot of good eating apples that have been bred to have thin skins and my guess is they are lacking the properties of their counterpart the thick skinned Red Delicious.

I know what the popularity of this unique apple is and the fact that smart people do not succumb to off the shelf laxatives, instead they depend on the natural process that the apple provides. The coarseness of the skin, the roughage that should be chewed thoroughly by the way, the pectin, the quercetin, the anti-oxidants, the alkalized minerals in the skin, the proper traffic time factor, all spells the Red Delicious Apple and huge health implications.

Take note that the skin of fruits and vegetables and seed especially hold anti-oxidants that protect the food from spoilage. A seed buried in the ground for 50 years that when brought up to the surface will germinate because it has been preserved and mystically I might add. Just imagine a hunk of steel will go back to dust buried in the ground in a few years but yet a seed will not deteriorate.

Now guess what, mother nature must have said "Hey why don't we just pass these anti-oxidants and magic on to the consumer" Now if you eat a potato with its jacket as in a baked potato, the potato will be an alkaline producing food. The food of preference or at least the weighted preference. (You do need acid foods as in meat, omega 3 fatty acids etc.) Dispose of the potato jacket like in mashed, French fries, dumplings etc. and they are acid forming. What does that tell you? It tells you the alkalinity in conjunction with the preserving properties of the antioxidants are concentrated on, in and just under the skin. So the next time you have reason to peel a potato or God forbid peel an apple and chuck the skin in the garbage can, hold your head in shame.

One caution we would make with the safety of eating an apple without cleaning it properly. Apples are washed in a recycled cleaning operation and we have observed where the water tanks are not refreshed on a regular basis. The cleaning operation is primarily to remove pesticide residues. The apples after they are washed are encapsulated in a wax coating to make them look pretty and preserve them somewhat. This can be a very unsafe procedure. This wax is not removed easily with just a rinsing under the faucet. We have found that liquid dish soap does cut the wax and takes care of the residue. We would strongly recommend that you follow this cleaning process. As described on the right/above we use the soap and use our hands to scrub the fruit, although some may want to take it a step further and use a brush. Caution do not wash fruits or vegetables in advance, wash them just before you use them.

If you take one apple and wash it, take another and don't wash it, put them on a counter for a day or two and see the contrasting difference of what takes place. The washed apple will almost immediately start to deteriorate. The unwashed will not. Even the exterior of the skin has some mystical preservative powers. For Gods sake take advantage of this blessing.

The most important things that must be addressed is purchasing hard, crisp, white fleshed apples. Two indications of the condition of an apple is if it is greasy to the touch. If an apple is greasy chances are it is over the hill and mushy. My guess is that greasy apples have lost the magic. Another indications is stripes on an apple. Stripes on an apple are characteristics that you find when apples are picked in two phases. First picking and the second picking awhile after. They do this to wait for some of the apples to gain more color, but in the process stripes develop, as well as increased ripening. First picking is almost always the best.

You need good quality apples to make the process work. We are talking roughage, not apple sauce. It is common to walk out of a supermarket and find when you arrive home that you have bought mushy, over ripe apples that were not properly handled. Now I confront produce managers with the fact at times that they are selling low grade Cider apple quality for premium prices. Apples are expensive today compared to when I grew them.

I ask the produce manager if he bought bad meat what would he do with it? They say "bring it back for a refund" and that is exactly what I do. There are produce managers that will slice an apple and let you sample it. Now if they meet the test, don't just buy a few, load up. Calculate how many you can comfortably get in your refridge and again load up. Good hard apples will keep for weeks in a refidg. It isn't always easy getting good hard apples, so get the best when the getting is good. If you don't get a produce manager to give you a sample, buy a bunch of them, walk outside and bite into one. If they don't measure up bring them right back. Let me tell you, this is one of the most important things that you can do for your health, so take the time to do it.

One more point do not put any fruit that is very ripe in storage with fruit that is not. The ethylene gas of ripening fruit will accelerate the ripening of solid fruit. In fact if you have a ripe apple and you want to accelerate the ripening of bananas, tomatoes or even a melon, stick the ripe apple in a paper bag (Leave the bag on the counter and slightly opened) with the unripened fruit and watch them, because this works believe me. I used Ethylene gas with an airplane for 40 years I know what it does. Again don't put ripe anything with fruit that you do not want to ripen.

It is written that the right roughage has a great deal to do with controlling your Cholesterol and just about any toxicity that is terrorizing your body. How well your digestion process works in regard to extracting nutrients and scavenging wastes for removal depends on the locomotive and there isn't a better locomotive than a good hard Red Delicious apple. I personally eat one 365 for my afternoon snack with a few nuts and a couple of pieces of chicken, to maintain my balance of Carbs, Protein and Fat at every meal and snack and you should too.

The last is the Peacedale Farms saga and the Red Delicious apple and it is for this memorable event in our lives my wife and I feel so thankful that we were blessed with the family cooperation that we received to make our lives what it is today. We worked hard, but we had a lot of help and especially from the man upstairs.

It was tough when we started and this example will really exemplify how tight it was.

One dreary October evening just before dark , cold and raining I stood under a piece of plastic out on Route 9 about 15 miles south of Albany New York, at our 300 year old Peacedale Farms, under a couple of apple trees with a display of apples in baskets. It was getting dark and my wife came over from our rather dilapidated old house (It isn't dilapidated any more) and inquired when I would be home. She joined me under the plastic cover. This was our only roof to work under.

She had been to the Doctor a few days before and with a case of pleurisy in her back the Doctor advised hospitalization. 3 kids home, little to nothing in money she said that she should go to the Doctor and get another hearing in her lungs. At the time if the Doctor knew you and knew you were lets say short of financing, the office charge, the inoculations and at times medication, total cost 3 bucks. I think he would have done an appendectomy for 3 bucks for us. His name was Dr. Paul Rogati, he just died a few years ago in his nineties. God bless him. We knew if we had to get a prescription we would have to go to the drug store and see our friend the pharmacist Henry Dreshler. He had a 3 buck number on anything we needed, penicillin whatever, 3 bucks.

My wife asked if I had made any sales and I said no. There was not any "loose change" at the house either. So the answer was easy, no money, no Doctor or prescription. When we just about got ready to close down and it was getting real dark a truck pulled in looking for directions to Chatham N.Y. We told him down the road make a left, another left through the town and a right on 203 and he would be on his way to Chatham. He looked out the window as he started to pull away and he said "What are you two kids doing out on a night like this?" We didn't respond. He said "You need to sell some apple, don't you?" Now we had baskets of yes you guessed it Red Delicious apples about 30 lbs in a basket. They were beautiful apples the same kind I am paying a buck and half a pound for in the stores now. He said "How much are those baskets of apples" I said "2 dollars, about 30 lbs and that figures out to a little more than a nickel a pound."

He said "I have a bad back but if you can put 3 baskets on the floor of my cab, I'll take em." I loaded those apples in less than a minute. He left, I gave my wife the 6 dollars and she followed the truck right into Town to the Doctors office.

She came back about an hour latter and I said "Dr. Rogati 3 dollars?", she shook her head "yes" , "Henry (the druggist) 3 dollars?" she shook her head "yes."

I hopped in our old station wagon with a broken spring on the back axle and went home. Pam our oldest child was looking after our other 2. She wasn't that big herself, but we called her "the enforcer"

The next day the sun came out and we had a hell of day, we sold a pile of apples and we have been selling a pile of apples ever since.

This information is intended to heighten awareness of potential health care alternatives and should not be considered as medical advice. See your qualified health-care professional for medical attention, advice, diagnosis, and treatments.