Newswise — From Adam and Eve to Isaac Newton to William Tell, apples have been as much a part of legend and lore as they are known to be healthful. But apple peel, dried and powdered, is a 21st century phenomenon that is only now beginning to find its stride.
By blending dried apple peel powder (DAPPTM) into organic applesauce, first-year functional food company AppleBoost Products Inc. has moved cutting-edge food science out of Cornell University laboratories and onto the world stage of athletics for the second time in five months.
The top-ranked Oklahoma Sooners are snacking on AppleBoost energy snack tubes this week while preparing to square off against the Florida Gators for college football's national championship in Miami January 8. AppleBoost snacks made their debut last August when registered dietitians for the U.S. Olympic Committee distributed 6,000 tubes of the nutritionally fortified applesauce to American Olympians and coaches for their flight to China.
Apples, like many fruits, contain a cocktail of antioxidant activity—virtually all of it attributable to dozens of phytochemicals like chlorogenic acid, catechins and anthocyanidins—that are not found in vitamin pills. Antioxidants in fresh produce mop up harmful compounds in the body that compromise cell health, which is why we're constantly being advised to eat five or more servings of fruit and vegetables every day.
Much of an apple's nutritional value is concentrated in and just under the skin, which is what prompted Cornell researchers to develop a patented process for powdering apple peel while retaining all its nutrients. The purpose of Cornell's early research was to find a more convenient, inexpensive method of infusing antioxidant-rich apple peel into a wide variety of foods to make them healthier. Initial efforts by AppleBoost Products to promote apple peel powder as a value-added food ingredient got off to a slow start in 2008 for co-founders Jim Leahy and Dave Copeland, who distribute their fledgling family of apple-based products out of Churubusco, NY. The concept of fortifying breakfast cereals, yogurt and blended beverages with nutrient-rich apple peel powder was sound, but big food companies wanted more clinical analysis to quantify the health benefits.
"Cornell University has been testing and showing that apple peel powder is a healthy whole food ingredient since research findings were first reported in 2002," explained Leahy, 77, who founded Leahy Orchards 30 years ago and turned it into the fourth largest applesauce producer in North America.
"We think Cornell's findings are compelling," Leahy explained, "so we decided to blend apple peel powder into our own organic applesauce, package it in portable tubes to make them convenient for athletes, and present it as a good-tasting, low-calorie health food for everyone snacking on the go."
Jerry Schmidt, head strength and conditioning coach at the University of Oklahoma, likes the marriage of nature to food science. "Powdering the peel and putting it back into organic applesauce is a pretty clever concept, like turning apples inside out," said Schmidt. "The tubes keep the food safe and clean, and the players love the taste of the applesauce. We shipped in 3,000 AppleBoost tubes for practices leading up to the national championship game." Long considered nature's perfect food, and credited with "keeping the doctor away," apples caught the eye of Cornell associate professor Rui Hai Liu, Ph.D., nine years ago when he set out to prove that the most nutritious part of some fruit, including plums and cherries but especially apples, is in the peel. Liu co-authored a paper with Kelly L. Wolfe in 2003 to report that chronic diseases like cancer and cardiovascular disease may occur as a result of oxidative stress, and that high concentrations of antioxidant-rich compounds found in apple peel may aid in disease prevention by neutralizing oxidation.
Five years later, in May 2008, Liu cited his latest apple peel research and told NaturalNews.com: "We found that several compounds (in apple peel) have potent anti-proliferative activities against human liver, colon and breast cancer cells, and may be partially responsible for the anti-cancer activities of whole apples." Liu said he and Xiangjiu He, a Cornell postdoctoral researcher, identified a dozen compounds in apple peel that either inhibit or kill cancer cells in laboratory cultures. Some compounds were more potent and acted differently against the various cancer cell lines, Liu said, but they all showed potent anti-cancer activities and should be studied further. Leahy, who spent his entire life in the apple business before turning his successful food processing operation over to his sons in 2007, said Dr.Liu's research affirms what he's always believed: there's even more goodness in apples than they're given credit for. Leahy specifically refers to anecdotal evidence gathered from family and friends that suggest dried apple peel powder has some anti-inflammatory properties similar to Cox 1 or Cox 2 inhibition.
"Those Cox inhibition properties are what first captured my attention," said Dave Ellis, RD, CSCS, a sports dietitian who has provided nutrition counsel to dozens of the nation's top college and professional sports teams, including the Oklahoma Sooners football team playing this week.
"I first heard about dried apple peel powder from pitchers in professional baseball who were among the first to try it," Ellis explained. "That led me to AppleBoost Products and the Cornell University research, which has an impressive body of work illustrating the diverse bioactivity found in apple peel."
In the final analysis, Ellis said, athletes competing at the highest levels of sport endure constant stress throughout their season—not only on the field of play but also while traveling from city to city—and are better served by "food-first" solutions like fruits and vegetables, including dried apple peel powder, that provide measurable advantages over isolates found in dietary supplements.
The top apple-producing states are Washington and New York (home to Cornell U. in Ithaca), followed by Michigan, Pennsylvania and California. The production of applesauce and canned apples produces millions of pounds of apple peel every year, most of which is used today for cattle feed. With its current processing capabilities, Leahy Orchards, the largest applesauce producer in Canada situated in Franklin Centre, Quebec, can produce more than a million pounds of dry weight apple peel powder a year on its own.
The cost of transporting raw apple peel to specialized drying and food processing centers for milling has been a hindrance to the food ingredient's evolution this decade. Leahy Orchards is getting those costs under control this month by installing state-of-the-art milling equipment under its own roof.
NSF International, which is in the business of protecting consumers by helping to ensure the safety of food, water and air, announced in November that AppleBoost Products successfully completed the requirements of the NSF Athletic Banned Substances Certification Program. The "NSF Certified for Sport" designation, which is recognized by Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association, is part of a worldwide program to reduce the risk that a dietary or sports supplement contains banned or contaminated substances. NSF certification applies specifically to the dried apple peel powder AppleBoost sells in powder and capsule form. AppleBoost energy snack tubes, while not currently under NSF purview, have successfully met the food industry's Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) standards.
All-natural AppleBoost energy snack tubes come in squeezable, freezable 32-gram packaging with a two-year shelf life, and have only 30 calories. There are two flavors: Mango Peach and Wildberry. For now, AppleBoost products are only available for purchase in bulk at (http://www.appleboost.com) on the "products" page. A mixed case of 72 Appleboost energy snack tubes, half Mango Peach and half Wildberry, is currently priced at $43.48, which includes shipping and handling. AppleBoost tubes are being sold to sports teams, schools, hospitals and other institutions in quantities ranging from 72-count cases to 12,800-count pallets. Most everyone will easily be able to order on line. To speak with someone about orders larger than one pallet, please e-mail [email protected] or call 1-877-326-6780.
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