21st October: Apple Day

Today is Apple Day, so here are some facts about apples:

1. According to the Italian scientists who mapped the genome of the Golden Delicious in 2010, it has 57,000 genes - more than we humans have (30,000).
2. An apple has 10 seeds on average. The seeds contain cyanide - but if you swallow an apple seed it won't kill you - The seed's coat wouldn't be broken down by your digestive system so it would pass through without releasing any poison, and in any case it would take a cupful of the seeds to produce enough poison to be lethal.
3. Apple trees can live to be over 100 years old. They are about five years old before they produce any fruit.
4. The first apples came from Kazakhstan. The city Almaty literally means ‘the apple place’. Today, the top apple producers are China, USA, Turkey, Poland and Italy. The largest consumers of apples are Russia, Germany and the UK.
5. It is generally accepted that the apple was the forbidden fruit that Adam and Eve ate in the Garden of Eden, and the term "Adam's apple" came from the idea that the apple core got stuck in Adam's throat. However, it does not mention anywhere in the Bible that apples were the forbidden fruit.
6. The science of apple cultivation is known as Pomology. The fear of apples is known as Malusdomesticaphobia. This comes from the scientific name of apples, Malus domestica.
7. Apples are popular gifts to bring when visiting people in China - this is because the Chinese word for apple is the same as the word for peace.
8. There are more than 8,000 varieties of apples – the largest variety of any fruit to exist. Apples come in a variety of colours from lime green to golden yellow to burgundy and chocolate brown, and can vary in size from the size of a pea to 1.85 kilos, the largest ever apple, which was grown in the Japanese city of Hirosaki.
9. It takes 36 apples to produce a gallon of cider. The average person will eat 65 of them in a year.
10. The Trojan war was started by an apple, when Paris presented a golden apple, inscribed with the word ‘kallistei’ (‘to the fairest one’), to Aphrodite. This did not go down well with Hera and Athena which ultimately led to the war.