Apples have long been hailed as a pop culture super food and aphrodisiac.
Nutritious and delicious, apples now have more promising benefits to impart: increasing lifespan by up to 10%. Research published in ACS’s Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry reports that, “consumption of a healthful antioxidant substance in apples extends the average lifespan of test animals, and does so by 10 percent. The new results, obtained with fruit flies — stand-ins for humans in hundreds of research projects each year — bolster similar findings on apple antioxidants in other animal tests.”
We recently reported on the negative aspect of antioxidants: infertility.
From ScienceDaily.com:
Zhen-Yu Chen and colleagues note that damaging substances generated in the body, termed free radicals, cause undesirable changes believed to be involved in the aging process and some diseases. Substances known as antioxidants can combat this damage. Fruits and vegetables in the diet, especially brightly colored foods like tomatoes, broccoli, blueberries, and apples are excellent sources of antioxidants. A previous study with other test animals hinted that an apple antioxidant could extend average lifespan. In the current report, the researchers studied whether different apple antioxidants, known as polyphenols, could do the same thing in fruit flies.
The researchers found that apple polyphenols not only prolonged the average lifespan of fruit flies but also helped preserve their ability to walk, climb and move about. In addition, apple polyphenols reversed the levels of various biochemical substances found in older fruit flies and used as markers for age-related deterioration and approaching death
Chen and colleagues note that the results support those from other studies, including one in which women who often ate apples had a 13-22 percent decrease in the risk of heart disease.
The Aphrodisiac History of Apples
Besides anti-oxidants, apples are loaded with pectin. This helps prevent sugar crashes from eating less healthy snacks, and offers eco-sexy nutrition in the form of even energy distribution. Stories about the aphrodisiac properties of the apple are abundant and widespread. Since the time of the Garden of Eden, this fruit has been a symbol of sexuality and expulsion from grace. According to folk traditions, if a woman slept with an apple and persuaded the man she loved to eat the apple, he would fall madly in love with her.
And the ancient Greeks supposedly used an apple to demonstrate affection and intended engagement. If a warrior tossed an apple in the direction of a fair maiden, this meant she was quite literally, the apple of his eye.
Incidently, this year marks the sixth that apples grown in the Golan Heights are being exported to Syria.
Related ecosexuality news:
Are Antioxidants Keeping You Young and Infertile?
Do These Fats Make My Handle Look Big? Eco-Sexy Nutrition for Men
Sex Up Sustainability: Five Ways to Make Love to One Another and the Planet in 2011
Tinamarie is a regular contributor to Greenprophet.com. You can follow her on @ModernLoveMuse and facebook. She blogs at www.tinamariebernard.com.
Author: Tinamarie Bernard
Tinamarie combines her interests in two of her favorite topics – relationships and the environment – for Greenprophet.com. As our eco-sexpert, she explores ways to make our personal lives more sustainable, whether it’s between a couple, the sheets or our ears. While eco-sexuality is a new term and still unfamiliar to many, being conscious about what we use in moments of intimacy is connected to better stewardship of the planet. The idea that green is sexy and sex can be green is one she is thoroughly enjoying discovering. This married mom of two also believes we owe it to our children to teach them to love themselves, each other, and the environment for futures to come. Intimacy isn’t something we are born knowing. Neither is good stewardship of the earth. In her spare time, she muses about sacred sexuality, conscious love, intimacy, feminism and parenting as the top-rated Modern Love column for Examiner.com and several other media outlets. She composes poetry (mostly in her heart), mediates (when time allows), rides horses in the Galilee, and searches for delicious parve dessert recipes. She considers chocolate a righteous sin, and won’t give up a single pair of red shoes. You can find...
I find it interesting when people insult others but don’t put their name…
With that said, eco-sexuality is a growing trend in the environmental movement that among other things, incorporates sexual health and the food that we eat, as they pertain to our wellbeing. That I put in a little ‘folklore’ as you call it references humanity’s long relationship with food and sex. Before we had modern medicine, we turned to nature for our wellbeing. How is that not ecological?
I heartily recommend Eco-Sex: Go Green Between the Sheets and Make Your Love Life Sustainable (2010) for more information.
So the report on the study is interesting, but does the author really think that the silly title (Eco-Sexy–what does that even mean? there isn’t even a single ecological issue here. I suggest you look up the word before using it next time.) and mixing in folklore with science will help disseminate the science? Or perhaps the next phase of the scientific study is to analyze the aphrodisaic potential of the apple? Maybe put the author in a room filled with apples and see what happens?