Are you Eating your APPLE A DAY?
My fingers glide over the waxy cold surfaces of red, green and yellow skin. The options are extensive: Pink Lady, Envy, Enterprise, Ambrosia, McIntosh, Braeburn, Fuji, Honeycrisp, Granny Smith, SugarBee, Red Delicious and Gala. But I reach for my favorite, Cosmic Crisp. Jim, my fellow volunteer at the BASF Planetarium, was talking to me the other day about his recent purchase of a bag of Cosmic Crisp apples. I smiled as he described the sweet and tart taste, because I knew something he didn’t. Cosmic Crisps were originally developed at my alma mater, WSU. Washington State University in 1997 created the delicious blend of Honeycrisp and Enterprise apple and released “WA 38” otherwise known as Cosmic Crisp. Washington state apple growers began cultivating them in 2017 and by 2019, you could buy them at Kroger’s. Cosmic Crips are now 8th in total sales of all apples sold in the US. And there is a new apple from WSU on the horizon! It has taken twenty years to bring “WA 64,” a hybrid of Honeycrisp and Pink Lady, to Washington growers. As an alumna, I actually entered a competition and submitted a name for the newest WSU apple. I chose “Crimson Kiss.” I didn’t win. The winning name is Sunflare and you only have to wait three more years for it to arrive at your grocery store!
There are over 2,500 varieties of apples grown in the USA. Washington, the “Apple State,” is the leading apple producer with over 60 percent of U.S. production. However, it isn’t known as “The Big Apple,” New York, the second largest producer of apples, gets that distinction. Other producers are Michigan, Pennsylvania, California, Virginia, Oregon, Ohio and Idaho. Not to be outdone, the great state of Texas produces apples too. In fact, Medina, in the Hill country, is considered the “Apple Capital of Texas.”
Apples were a big part of my childhood. We had many apple trees on our property. My favorite was the Gravenstein apple. These juicy, crisp, heirloom apples grew so large that I had to hold them with two hands. I can’t remember a time when a deep dish 9 x 13 apple pie wasn’t waiting for us when we got home from school. My dad had a saying, “You have to get the right ratio of ice cream to pie, Lauri. Here, let me help you with that,” and he’d add another scoop! Both of us would often get caught sneaking into the refrigerator with a spoon in hand, stealing a bite of pie. I guess “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
Here are a few fun facts about the “noblest of fruits”: The study of apples is called “pomology.” Apples are part of the rose family. The fear of apples is known as “Malusdomesticaphobia.” I can’t imagine who would be afraid of apples, with the exception of Snow White. The average person in the US enjoys eating apples and consumes 26 pounds yearly. Though the Red Delicious has long been the reigning king, Gala is currently ranked #1. Johnny Appleseed really was a nurseryman named John Chapman who planted apples across Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. One of George Washington’s favorite hobbies, besides chopping down cherry trees, was pruning his apple trees. Benjamin Franklin is credited with saying, “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” but it actually originated from a Welsh proverb in the 19th century. The original quote from 1866 was, “Eat an apple on going to bed, and you’ll keep the doctor from earning his bread.”
I wonder which apple you’ll reach for the next time you’re at the grocery store? My bet is on the Cosmic Crisp. And when you take that first juicy bite, I hope you will join me in cheering, Go Cougs!
Published in The Facts, Brazos Life 3/25/2026
