Dear Kid,

Happy New Year! And happy apples to celebrate the New Year.

Apples are members of the rose family. Unfortunately, handing your True Love a bouquet of apple blossoms doesn’t really have the same effect as sending a dozen roses. Or even a single rose.

There are over 8,000 varieties of apples, 2,500 of which are grown in the US.
Which is weird since only a small number of varieties are sold in your grocery store. This has a lot to do with grocery stores and shoppers and not so much to do with apple availability.

Apples ripen six to 10 times faster at room temperature than if they are refrigerated.

Apple varieties range in size from a little larger than a cherry to as large as a grapefruit. The largest apple ever picked weighed 3 pounds. As with so many things, I’m not sure that those at the extreme ends are fabulous.

A peck of apples weighs 10.5 pounds. A bushel of apples weighs about 42 pounds. Therefore, if I Love You a Bushel and a Peck of apples, a considerable percentage of my body goes toward loving. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. Or a misrepresentation.

It takes about 36 apples to create one gallon of apple cider.

In Chinese, the word for apples is pronounced “ping” which also means peace. This is perhaps my favorite apple fact.

Thanks to their high levels of boron, apples can help improve your memory, mental alertness, and electrical activity of the brain. While apples don’t have a lot of calcium, their boron content helps strengthen bones. I think I might have to research boron.

Apples also contain malic acid, a chemical used in teeth whitening products, which helps dissolve stains.

Malusdomesticaphobia is the fear of apples. I have no idea why you would ever need to know that because apples are good things. And according to popular lore, they keep the medical professionals away. Mostly because you have shiny white teeth and strong bones from eating all those apples.

Love, Mom