Apples, apples, apples

I can never get tired of apples! Raw or cooked, green, red, yellow, small or big, they are full of minerals and vitamins and low of calories. Perfect for healthy snacks between the meals. The apple flesh contains cellulose and tannins. Tannins help to prevent heart and circulatory diseases as well as cancer. Apples have 30 kinds of minerals and many important vitamins, although the vitamin C that is mostly in the skin is not as high as in other fruit. Small apples have a bigger percentage of vitamin C than big ones. Another important part of the skin is pectin, a fibre, that cleans the intestines by taking slug materials out of the body. A grated apple is a well-tried mean against diarrhoea.

Hildegard recommends also the bark, leaves and apple blossoms. Young spring blossoms and leaves help against eye clouding.

“A person, old or young, disturbed from any kind of clouding of the eyes, should take apple blossoms and leaves in the springtime before the fruit appears. When the leaves first come out, they are tender and healthy like a maiden, before she bears children. Squeeze the juice out of the blossoms and add it to equal parts of grapevine drippings, mix and fill in a bottle. At night, before going to sleep, moisten the eyelids and the eyes (with your fingertips), so that nothing penetrates the eyes. Then moisten the leaves with the drops and put them on the eyes (as a compress) over night. If you do this often (daily), the opacity will disappear and you will be able to see more clearly.”