HEALTH, NUTRITION; THEORYTHE EVOLUTIONARILY APPROPRIATE DIET > FRUIT > VITAMIN C CONTENT OF FRUIT > VITAMIN C CONTENT OF APPLE
 

reserved
 


Natural food guide-Fruit Vitamin C Content of Apple Cultivars
The Natural Food Hub - www.naturalhub.com


 [The Natural Food Hub - contents page] [Vitamin C content of other fruit]
Apples picked and eaten straight from the tree (without peeling-there are significant amounts of vitamin C in the peel) can be anything from a good to a very good source of vitamin C. The variation depends on which variety of apple you are eating. The vitamin C content about halves after three months storage-with the exception of 'Sturmer', a hard, acid, late variety that is rarely available today. Remarkably, it loses no vitamin C in three months of cool storage.
All values in the chart below are rounded to the nearest whole number. Exactly half a milligram is rounded up, not down.

This information is from the 'Changes in Vitamin C Content and Acidity of Apples during Cool Storage', Askew & Kidson, reported in the NZ Journal of Science and Technology Vol. 28, No.5 1947, and from data from the New York experiment station reported in 1946.
 

Cultivar 
(variety)
FRESHLY PICKED FRUIT
mg vit C/100 grams
mg vitamin C per average size fruit/slice
Ranking
AFTER 3 MONTHS
COOL STORAGE
mg vit C/100 grams
Ranking
Cox's Orange*
11
11
good
5
-
Jonathan*
11
11
good
5
-
Delicious*
7
8
fairly good
5
-
Granny Smith*
12
13
good
5
-
Sturmer*
25
25
very good
25
very good
Statesman*
7
8
fairly good
3
-
Caville blanc
35-40
nd
excellent
nd
-
Sturmer
29
29
very good
nd
-
Yellow Newton
16
nd
very good
nd

Northern Spy
15-20
nd
very good
nd

Baldwin
15-20
nd
very good
nd

Winesap
10
nd
good
nd

McIntosh
4
nd
fair
nd

'Bramley's Seedling' has also been noted as having "more vitamin C than an orange", which would make this non-commercial variety an excellent source of vitamin C. However, I don't have actual figures that would confirm or disprove this claim.

Any variety which has from 6 to 15 grams of vitamin C and is not highly packed with sugars is regarded as a 'good' source.

Some very sweet fruit can be regarded as fairly good sources because they have more than 6 grams a serving, but not much more.

Any variety that gives from about 15 grams to about 30 grams can be considered a 'very good' source of vitamin C

When a variety has more than about 30 grams per serving, it is an 'excellent' source of Vitamin C.

* These values are for the flesh only, peeled of the skin. Apple skin, or the flesh just under it, has very good amounts of vitamin C -typically around 50mg/100gms, and for some cultivars, such as 'Granny Smith' and 'Sturmer', very good amounts, at around 100mg/100gms of peel. No one sits down to a big feed of apple peel, but it does mean if you eat the apple without peeling it you will take in more vitamin C than the figures for the flesh alone suggest.

Vitamin C content of apple cultivars  - no sources listed, but a page from the North American Fruit Explorers site listing vitamin C content of various apples.
http://www.nafex.org/jansonfiles/JansonJan68.htm

Please email any figures you have on the ascorbic acid content of apple cultivars-
 E-mail me here


  © Copyright 1999, 2000, 2001 UHIS