Another Apple Story

I quite like the color green. I also consider myself a small but active worker of the green movement. For my daughter, I have categorically searched for, and bought, tops and caps and even a tutu in some shades of green. Yet, I have never delighted in buying or biting into a green apple.

When I was a more carefree shopper, even when the greener versions of Eve's tempter presented themselves in flawless and shiny turgidity, my fingers still touched and grabbed the mediocre looking red apples. However now, when I have started to stick to a regimen of strictly 'organic' apples, I really do not have much choice often times, if I am not at a specialty grocer. There is not only a dearth of the variety of apples, but there is actually a real scarcity of the units of apples too in my neighborhood store. So, I just have to buy what's available, even if there are just some green ones. And so the green ones are making their way into an unlikely address of late.

Typically, all things equal, past the distinction of green or not, I am quite color blind for apples. I do not mind any shade of red--dark like the red delicious or red with lots of yellow on it like the Fuji apples. It is the Granny Smiths that I am not at all tempted by. I think I know why. First, the green ones somehow always look like 'works-in-progress'. Afterall who ever taught a kid 'A for Apple' staring at a picture of a green thing? It is the color red that we almost always associate with the image of an apple. Actually in my experience the green apples almost always come way behind even in the sweetness of the fruit. Second, even when one begins to probe, one realises that the apple comes from family Rosaceae----ok, so whoever thought of a green rose, when imagining one?

Last but not the least, when you have been taught that 'an apple a day keeps the doctor away', you begin to associate the redness of the 'typical' apple with an ability to 'generate pure red blood' inside the human body. For the slightly medically infatuated (like me), the word 'haemoglobin' pops us in the mind with smileys and bright bulbs when consumption of apples is contemplated. You think a green apple can invoke all those feelings of holistic well-being? At least not in me.

Does the green one really differ in its nutrients when compared with the red ones--I do not know. I guess I could try to google the answer, but then, I am not sure if I want the answer yet. Somehow I do not feel bad about my discerning taste. As I said, if I have to, then I buy the green apple, but otherwise, the red ones continue to be the apple of my eye.