Fall is here – time to pay a visit to the apple growers and stock up on apples for fall and winter. These tips will keep your apples juicy and crisp for several months.

1. The apple likes it cool

Stored at room temperature, apples ripen faster and become shriveled. Always store the fruit as cool as possible, 2 to 5 °C is ideal. This temperature prevails, for example, in the vegetable compartment of the refrigerator.

If you don’t want to dedicate the entire lower level of your refrigerator to apple storage, cool basement rooms and/or the balcony are also suitable. On the balcony, however, the apples need a place in the shade, because being illuminated by the sun accelerates the ripening process. It is important that you do not expose the apples to frost.

2. Nice and airy, please

Apples feel happiest when they are loosely packed in boxes on newspaper. If space allows, use multiple crates rather than stacking the fruit. Also, make sure the apples aren’t touching; This is how you prevent rotten spots and mold.

3. Protection from evaporation

In order for the apple skin to stay plump, protection against evaporation is also important. Many apple farmers offer their fruit in plastic bags. These are good for storage. Ventilation holes are important to prevent condensation from forming. Alternatively, you can place a plastic bag or foil, also with ventilation holes, over your apple crates.

4. It depends on the right apple

Not all apple varieties store well. For example, the following are well suited:

• boskoop
• Braeburn
• Elstar
• Gala
• Golden Delicious
• Jonagold
• Idared
• Welland
• rubies
• topaz

It is best to ask the farmer or retailer you trust which varieties he particularly recommends.

Apples are full of vitamins and minerals – every child is taught that. But in addition to the health-promoting ingredients, Greenpeace has now also found a number of different pesticides in the conventional apple harvest.

Greenpeace tests fruit

The environmental organization Greenpeace took a closer look at conventional apples from eleven European countries and tested them for their pesticide content. On the German market, 33 conventional apple samples and six apples from organic cultivation were examined. The samples for the German apples from 2015 were taken from Aldi, Alnatura, Basic, Edeka, Metro, Lidl, and Rewe.

The result

The sobering result of the study shows that no pesticide residues could be detected in only four of the conventional samples. The apples from the organic range, on the other hand, were completely unpolluted. Although the measured values ​​found were all below the legally permissible maximum amounts, they are not entirely harmless.

In its study, Greenpeace was able to detect up to seven different active ingredients in just one apple. So far, however, little is known about the interactions between the various pesticides.

Is there a pesticide tax now?

“Retailers, politicians, and producers must work together to reduce the use of toxins,” demands environmental scientist Christiane Huxdorff. According to the Greenpeace agriculture expert, one way of restricting spraying with poison in conventional fruit cultivation is a corresponding tax on pesticides.

The calculation is simple: the more expensive the pesticides, the less they are used. The cultivation of organic food already shows that spraying fruit and vegetables is not necessary at all. A rethink is urgently needed here.

If you store apples correctly, they stay fresh and tasty longer and can even be stored for many months – just like grandma used to do! Utopia tells you what you should consider here.

Why is proper storage of apples important?

The ripening process of an apple continues even after it has been picked and the texture of the harvested fruit changes. If you store apples incorrectly, they can overripe, rot, or dry up.

In order to avoid food waste, save money and simply enjoy the healthy fruit for longer, you should follow a few tips and store apples correctly.

Store apples separately from other fruit

Anyone who has ever put together a decorative fruit basket with apples, bananas, plums or pears knows how quickly the fruit ripens.

Apples give off the plant hormone ethylene, which causes the other fruits to ripen faster or even rot. Potatoes also suffer if they are stored with apples – they become shriveled and old faster. Therefore, you should always store apples separately.
You should also make sure to keep your apples cool and dark, ideally in a closet or basement. The vegetable drawer in the refrigerator is also suitable, but it should not contain any other fruit and vegetables because of the ethylene. The fridge shouldn’t be too cold either, because apples don’t tolerate frost.
If you still have old plastic bags at home, you can also use these for storage: the film retains moisture and the fruit is protected from drying out. But make sure that not too much water accumulates in the bag.

Stock up on apples to keep them fresh through the winter

With a few tricks, you can not only store the apples for a few days or weeks, but make them durable for the whole winter or even until the next harvest in autumn. This is far more ecological than buying imported apples from overseas.

Keep the following points in mind when storing apples:
Find a dark, cool storage place with a constant temperature – preferably between three and four degrees Celsius. For example, a basement compartment, a garage or a shed is suitable. Under certain circumstances, an unheated hallway or a cool pantry may also be suitable.
Make sure there is enough humidity so that the apples don’t dry out and shrivel up. For example, regularly set out bowls of water or loosely cover the apples with a perforated plastic wrap, if you have one. In this way, moisture is retained, but excessive condensation can escape.
At the same time, make sure there is enough air supply so that the apples don’t get moldy. If you’re storing them in wooden crates, only put one layer of apples per crate and make sure the fruit doesn’t touch each other. Boxes with side or bottom slots are particularly suitable.
If you store your apples in a shed in the garden, be sure to protect them from frost and rodents, such as mice!
Before storage: Only choose apples that are in good condition for storage – i.e. only fruit without bruises, signs of eating or rot. It is best to store the apples with the stem.

Floury apples are not a great pleasure on their own, but can still be used in many ways in the kitchen. We will explain why apples become mealy, how to store them correctly and which recipes mealy apples are particularly suitable for.

If the apple tastes mealy, that is not a reason for most people to be happy: Many appreciate the popular fruit precisely because it is crisp and al dente when fresh. That can easily change if apples are stored too long or under the wrong conditions. Also, certain apple varieties are more prone to tenderness than others.

By paying attention to the differences between the different varieties and storing your fruit correctly, you can prevent apples from becoming mealy quickly. If it happens anyway, you can still use the mealy apples in many ways when cooking and baking. At the end of this article you will find some suggestions for this.

Are there particularly mealy apple varieties?

By nature, no apple variety is automatically mealy. However, some varieties are less suitable for storage and become mealy faster than others. These include in particular summer apples such as the white clear apple or the Grevensteiner. They cannot be stored for long and should be eaten no later than four weeks after harvesting. After that, they taste less fresh and crisp. The Golden Delicious also takes on a floury consistency if it is harvested late.

But there are plenty of apple varieties that, if stored well, last a long time and have a lower risk of becoming mealy. This applies above all to rather sour representatives, for example Boskoop, Jonagold and Elstar. But even sweeter varieties like Braeburn and Gala don’t become floury as quickly if you store them well.

This will prevent apples from becoming floury

Apples becoming mealy at some point is a natural process. You can therefore hardly prevent it in the long run. However, by storing your apples properly, you can at least slow down the process. You should note the following:

To avoid apples becoming mealy quickly, store them in a cool, dark place. A basement room is ideal for this. If you don’t have a basement, you can store the apples in the vegetable drawer of your refrigerator. However, you should make sure that they do not come into contact with any other types of fruit and vegetables.
Even if you don’t store apples in the fridge, you should store them separately from other fruits and vegetables. Apples give off the ripening gas ethylene, which allows other varieties to ripen faster. Keeping them away from the rest of your fruit will keep it fresh longer. The apples themselves also benefit from separate storage, because other fruits (e.g. bananas) can also accelerate the ripening of the surrounding fruit. This interaction contributes to the fact that apples lose their freshness faster and become mealy.
It is important that you leave enough space for each apple. This allows air to circulate between the fruits and they stay fresh for longer. It is therefore better not to store large quantities of apples crowded together in a sack, but side by side in a box. Ideally, you should also refrain from storing several layers of apples on top of each other: the specimens on the bottom can easily bruise due to the weight of the upper layers. If you cannot avoid stacking for reasons of space, you can prevent pressure points by separating the individual layers with corrugated cardboard. This way the weight is distributed better.

This is how you can use mealy apples in the kitchen

Floury apples may not taste as good on their own as crunchy ones. If they are still good apart from that, you don’t have to throw them away: There are even more uses for mealy apples in cooking and baking than for those with firm and crunchy flesh.

But floury apples are also ideal for other recipes. Among other things, you can use them to prepare the filling for apple turnovers or apple strudel. They also make a good base for apple sauce, apple jam, apple jelly or apple chutney. So by overcooking mealy apples instead of throwing them away, you can try a variety of delicious recipes while avoiding unnecessary food waste.