Fruit: Don't Forget the Humble Apple :

Depending on where you live, winter is either on its way in or out. Keeping up fruit consumption in winter can get tough.

A frequent complaint from clients in clinic, is they don't eat fruit in winter because it's boring and the "really healthy fruit" are expensive.

Berries, citrus and stone fruit have long hogged the media spotlight. These glamorous fruits are praised for their colour, antioxidant content and flavour. However, we seem to have forgotten, the humble apple is also a nutritional wonder. Along with a bit of vitamin C, apples are packed full of antioxidant phytochemicals - particularly if you eat the skin.

While consumers might be turning off apples, researchers have long been a little apple crazy, as highlighted by two recent studies:

• Research published in the journal Thorax has suggested eating apples when pregnant may protect your baby from asthma.
• While quercetin, an antioxidant found in apples, may protect against illness after intensive exercise or other activity ( source ) - although you would need to eat about 100 apples to get the right dose of quercetin.

It's all a good reminder that like clothes and music, "healthy foods" go through fads and fashions. When one food is trumpeted as the latest and greatest, remember there are always many, many others that are good for you as well.

Even apples have had their moment of diet-craze , however a healthy diet is all about balance and variety.

Food fashions and crazes can be interesting to follow, but don't let them turn you away from more modest foods, like the apple.

This was a guest post from nutritionist and herbalist Kathryn Elliott. Kathryn maintains a blog here .

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