How to Pick Apples (Seb): Crisp, Sweet and Spotting Waxed or Old Stock

Press, sniff, flick and look at the stem: a good apple (seb) feels rock hard, smells faintly of apple at the stem end, gives a dull “tock” when flicked and has a stem that isn’t shrivelled. That’s how to pick apple at any stall, and it works whether you’re holding a dark Kala Kulu, a streaky Amri or an imported Fuji. Below you’ll find the local varieties and their seasons, how to tell this year’s crop from cold-store stock, what the “wax” really is, how to store apples without a fridge, and what apple benefits hold up.

Apple varieties by local name, and when they’re in season

Pakistan’s apples come mostly from the cool highlands, Balochistan (Kalat, Quetta, Mastung), Swat and other parts of KP, and Kashmir, while India’s come mainly from Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttarakhand, all places where cold winter nights give apples their crunch and colour. Harvest runs from late summer into autumn, which is why the sweetest, crunchiest local apples show up from September to December.

Green apples (Granny Smith type) are the sour ones. Not unripe. A different variety. Whether green or red is “healthier” is covered in a separate comparison; the short answer is that the difference is small.

How to pick apple at the stall: the 6-step check

1. Press gently with your thumb near the stem. It should feel as hard as a cricket ball. Any give means old or mealy flesh.
2. Weigh it in your palm. Compare two apples of the same size. The heavier one holds more juice.
3. Check the skin. Tight and smooth is fresh. Fine wrinkles near the stem mean it has been losing water for weeks.
4. Look at the stem. Green or fresh brown and firmly attached is good. A black, dried-up stem or a missing stem hole is a sign of long storage, and a missing stem lets rot in.
5. Smell the stem end. A light, fresh apple smell is right. A winey or fermented smell means it’s past its best inside.
6. Flick it with a finger. A dull, solid “tock” is crisp flesh. A hollow or soft thud often means mealy.

Skip apples with soft brown patches, punctures or bruises. One bad apple in a bag really does hurry the rest along, because a damaged apple gives off more ethylene (the ripening gas).

Fresh crop or cold-store stock?

Apples are picked once a year, but they’re sold all year. The trick is cold storage: kept at around 0 to 4 °C, and in big commercial stores with the oxygen turned down, apples can stay crisp for many months. Safe and normal. It does change the eating, though.

• Fresh crop (Sep to Dec): sharper smell, juicier bite, skin squeaks a little when rubbed.
• Old cold-store (spring and summer): flesh can be soft under a hard skin, flavour is flatter, and the core may be brown. Once it leaves the cold, it goes soft quickly, so buy fewer at a time.

An honest price signal: in peak season local apples should be at their cheapest. If an apple costs the same in December as in June, the June one is cold-store fruit.

The wax question: scratch test, and what it really shows

Every apple makes its own wax, a thin natural coat that keeps water in, and because washing at the packing house strips some of it off, many packers add back a thin food-grade coating (usually carnauba from a palm leaf, or shellac). These are permitted food additives and are generally harmless in the tiny amounts on an apple.

The scratch test: run a knife edge over the skin and a little white, waxy film comes off, which proves there’s wax, but it doesn’t tell you which kind, because natural wax does the same thing. Pouring hot water over the apple is no better. The real worry is different. A thick, sticky or greasy coat on a local apple sold loose is a sign the fruit was polished to look fresh, and you can’t know what was used.

To clean it, rinse under running water for about 20 seconds while rubbing firmly with your hands, then dry it with a clean towel; the rubbing removes most surface residue. If the coat is thick or sticky, peel it.

Don’t use soap, dishwash or bleach on fruit. The peel is porous enough to hold some of it, and it can upset your stomach.

How to store apples without a fridge (and with one)

• Cool room, no fridge: spread them in one layer in a basket or cardboard tray, not touching, in the coolest, darkest corner. Check every 2 or 3 days and pull out any soft one. They’ll keep 1 to 2 weeks, longer in a cold winter room.
• Fridge: the crisper drawer in a loose or holed bag keeps them crunchy for a month or more.
• Keep apart from: bananas you want to last, leafy greens, cucumbers and carrots. Apples give off ethylene, which yellows greens and makes carrots bitter. The flip side is useful: put an apple in a bag with a hard kiwi or an unripe persimmon to ripen it. More on this in our guide to keeping fruit and vegetables fresh.
• Cut apple browning: a squeeze of lemon or a dip in lightly salted water for a minute slows it. The browning itself is harmless.

Soft, wrinkly apples aren’t rubbish: stew them with a little cinnamon and water, or grate them into halwa or a cake batter.

Apple benefits: what an apple really does for you

An apple isn’t a superfood. It’s better: a cheap, filling, portable fruit that most people will actually eat.

• Fibre: about 4 g in a medium apple with the peel, a good chunk of it pectin, the soluble fibre that makes jam set. It helps keep you regular and full.
• Fullness for few calories: about 95 calories for a medium apple, and it takes a while to chew. Eating one before a meal is a decent habit for people watching their weight.
• Blood sugar: apples have a low glycaemic index (they raise sugar slowly), so a whole apple fits most diabetic meal plans as one fruit serving. Juice does not behave the same way.
• Plant compounds: the red peel holds most of the colour pigments and flavonoids. Eating the peel gets you more of them.

What’s hype: apples don’t clean your teeth like brushing does, they don’t melt fat, and “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” is a Welsh-origin rhyme, not a medical finding. Vitamin C in an apple is modest; a guava or an orange has far more.

Peel and seeds: eat one, spit the other

Peel: eat it if you’ve washed it well, because it carries a good share of the fibre and most of the colour compounds, but peel it for toddlers, for anyone with poor teeth or dentures, or when the coat is thick and sticky.

Seeds: apple seeds contain amygdalin, which the body can turn into cyanide when the seed is crushed and chewed. Swallowing a few whole seeds by accident is harmless, because they pass straight through. Grinding a whole core into a smoothie day after day, or chewing seeds on purpose, isn’t wise. Core it. It’s the same family issue as bitter apricot kernels, explained in our piece on aroo and khubani seeds.

Two easy apple recipes and combos

Apple dalchini oats (one bowl)

1. Bring 1 cup milk or water to a boil with 4 tbsp rolled oats.
2. Add 1 small apple, grated with the peel, and a pinch of cinnamon.
3. Cook 3 to 4 minutes, stirring, until thick.
4. Top with 4 or 5 chopped almonds or walnuts. The apple sweetens it, so skip the sugar.

Seb chaat (serves 2)

1. Dice 1 large apple and 1 guava or pear.
2. Add 2 tbsp pomegranate arils and a squeeze of lemon.
3. Sprinkle a pinch of chaat masala and roasted zeera.
4. Eat within 20 minutes, before it browns and goes watery.

Good combos: apple with peanut butter, cheese or a handful of nuts. The protein and fat keep you full longer and blunt the sugar rise. The milk myth: apple with milk or in a shake is fine for most people; the belief that fruit and milk “clash” is examined in our food combinations fact check.

Apple for skin: a small, gentle use

Apple is mild on skin, so it makes a pleasant cooling pack, nothing more. Mash 2 tbsp of grated apple with 1 tbsp plain dahi, apply it to clean skin for 10 minutes, then rinse with cool water, once or twice a week at most, since doing it daily adds nothing but mess.

In desi homes: seb ka murabba and grated apple

Grandmothers grate apple for a child with an upset stomach, and serve seb ka murabba (apple in syrup) on winter mornings. Stewed or grated apple is gentle food, and the pectin does thicken loose stools a little, so that one has some sense to it. Murabba? Mostly sugar syrup. A sweet, not a tonic.

Where a home fix isn’t enough: loose motions need ORS first. See a doctor for blood in the stool, a baby or elderly person who can’t keep fluids down, very little urine, or diarrhoea lasting more than 2 days in an adult.

Myth: a green apple is just an unripe red apple

The truth is that Granny Smith and similar green apples are separate varieties that stay green when fully ripe. People believe the myth because every fruit they know goes from green to coloured. A green Kala Kulu would be unripe, but a green Granny Smith is done.

Surprising apple facts

• A fresh apple floats in water because about a quarter of its volume is air trapped between the cells.
• Apples are in the rose family, cousins of pears, plums, apricots and almonds.

Who should go easy on apples

• Irritable bowel (IBS): apples are high in fructose and sorbitol, which cause gas and bloating in some people. Try half an apple, peeled.
• Diabetes: one small to medium whole apple counts as one fruit serving. Skip the juice and murabba. Your dietitian can fit it into your plan.
• Itchy mouth after raw apple: some people with pollen allergies get tingling lips or throat from raw apple, but not cooked. Swelling of the tongue or trouble breathing is an emergency.
• Kids: raw apple chunks are a choking hazard under 5. For babies from 6 months, give it cooked soft and mashed, or grated fine, with no sugar added. For toddlers, thin slices or grated.
• Kidney disease: apples are a fairly low potassium fruit, which is why they’re often allowed, but your renal dietitian sets the count.

Apple questions people ask most

More seasonal produce guides live in our Fruits and Vegetables section, including how to pick and ripen nashpati.