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The Inconvenient Apple
23/2/06 08:51Packing school lunch this morning I was musing on the apple. I like apples. My kids like apples. What's not to like? And one would think that apples are the ultimate convenience food: single serving package, self-contained, easily portable. Apparently, however, sales of apples in the last decade have been flat, or maybe even decreasing, because apples aren't convenient enough. According to the New York Times Magazine, sales are growing, however, for pre-sliced apples. Now, over the last year or two I've seen packets of pre-sliced apples at the store and at school. I can see the point of the things, at least as far as school lunches and snacks are concerned. And apparently the apple packagers have come up with a process whereby the apples remain sweet and do not go mushy. I haven't tried them because, you see, I like apples.
What's not to like? According to the article in the Times Magazine some of the problems with apples in their native state are:
1) they're hard for little children to bite into. Okay, that's fair: tiny mouth, big apple, the kid scrapes off a little peel and not much apple.
2) they leave a "disgusting" corpse: the apple core with bite marks on it is just too animal
3) they go bad before you remember to eat them
4) they're fragile: pack one in a lunch and it'll be sporting little bruises by the time your angel gets to it
5) as mentioned, not edible by people with orthodontia
Well, in light of all that, in the words of the article, "What appeal could an apple have left but nostalgia, the kind of thing you'd find at Restoration Hardware beside a galvanized watering can?" I can't help but feel that an apple in its native state is a healthier object to eat, and I rather like the feeling of biting into an apple. But I have a 52-year-old mouth, my teeth are intact and un-braced, and apple cores do not repel me.
The goal of pre-slicing and pre-packing apples is to make them like Cheetoes or Go-Gurt, to make them as easy to eat as possible. The goals of the Apple Industry (and just typing that makes me giggle) is to sell all the apples they grow. So I suppose it all works out well. But I still find those little snack-sized packets of apples a little sinister.
What's not to like? According to the article in the Times Magazine some of the problems with apples in their native state are:
1) they're hard for little children to bite into. Okay, that's fair: tiny mouth, big apple, the kid scrapes off a little peel and not much apple.
2) they leave a "disgusting" corpse: the apple core with bite marks on it is just too animal
3) they go bad before you remember to eat them
4) they're fragile: pack one in a lunch and it'll be sporting little bruises by the time your angel gets to it
5) as mentioned, not edible by people with orthodontia
Well, in light of all that, in the words of the article, "What appeal could an apple have left but nostalgia, the kind of thing you'd find at Restoration Hardware beside a galvanized watering can?" I can't help but feel that an apple in its native state is a healthier object to eat, and I rather like the feeling of biting into an apple. But I have a 52-year-old mouth, my teeth are intact and un-braced, and apple cores do not repel me.
The goal of pre-slicing and pre-packing apples is to make them like Cheetoes or Go-Gurt, to make them as easy to eat as possible. The goals of the Apple Industry (and just typing that makes me giggle) is to sell all the apples they grow. So I suppose it all works out well. But I still find those little snack-sized packets of apples a little sinister.