“So how does this work,” you ask. When the phrase “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”1 was coined, no one imagined the findings of this clinical study2 and its incredible mechanism of action reported here. That exciting discovery is that it is that phytonutrients/phytochemicals, not vitamins and minerals, that the Creator included in apples that accounts for the incredible health properties reported here. Kiwis have far more nutrients than apples; however, kiwis do not contain apples’ phytonutrients with their incredible preventative benefits in this British report that are owing to synergism. On average an apple has approx. 5.5 mg. vit. C complex, a small amount of the required daily amount of vitamin C though apple’s vitamin C is the entire vitamin C, the vitamin C complex not just ascorbic acid, the “outer shell’ referred to conventionally as “vitamin C”). Yet this UK report clearly reveals the synergistic effect including peeling is as 1,500 mg. of vitamin C in each apple, a good recommended daily amount!
I have long said that when the synergism is considered (meaning the whole is greater than its parts), the half of the benefits of fresh, whole foods still have not yet been discovered! Also, more findings are needed of the eating of certain fresh, whole foods together, e.g., grapes and figs are most often found mentioned together in Scripture. We have yet to see a scientific report on the major benefits of that combination.
Please note: fruit juices in general are very high in simple sugars and I do not recommend consuming them apart from an apple or other piece of low-sugar fruit as part of a juice formula such as found in recipes at this website. Also, fruit juices alone do not include the beneficial peeling very important for the phytonutrients' effects reported in this study2.
1 A number of variants of the rhyme were in circulation around the turn of the 20th century, a century ago. In 1913, Elizabeth Wright recorded a Devonian dialect version and also the first known mention of the version we use now, in Rustic Speech and Folk-lore: "Ait a happle avore gwain to bed, An' you'll make the doctor beg his bread; or as the more popular version runs: An apple a day Keeps the doctor away."