An Apple a Day Keeps the Doctor Away

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There is an old saying "An apple a day keeps the doctor away" is a common English-language proverb that appeared in the 19th century".

The first account of this saying can be found dating back to 1866. A variant of the proverb, "Eat an apple on going to bed, and you'll keep the doctor from earning his bread" was recorded as a Pembrokeshire saying in 1866. The modern phrasing, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away", began usage at the end of the 19th century, with early print examples found as early as 1887.

Well they lied.

But there is a different fruit that fits the saying. Over 50 years ago, I discovered it. It is a BANANA.

An onion a day keeps everyone away.

Which is likely much more effective at keeping the doctor away than an apple since there will be less chance of getting diseases from other people if they stay away from you.

That is unless you cut your fingers.

I don't think having an apple a day can do any harm at least. It is a fruit which is generally beneficial in terms of micro-nutrients etc.

And bananas have other abilities especially when they get old.

The oldest record of the saying comes from a children's rhyme in the Welsh language in 1866
“Eat an apple on going to bed and you'll keep the doctor from earning his bread.”

That is interesting. Maybe that is where the saying originated from.

As Westward Expansion in the U.S. continued, a man who made history, and then turned legend, was curating the apple orchards of Illinois. Enter Johnny Appleseed, a.k.a. John Chapman. Born in 1774, Chapman traveled beyond the boundaries of frontiersman with apple seeds in hand, staking his claim of land for apple nurseries.

An interesting tidbit of info'!

It brings to mind another strange saying. "The Early Bird Catches the Worm"

This is an early saying that probably goes back many centuries. One interpretation is:



Now another way to interpret this saying is:



That is an interesting perception. In a way somewhere buried in the middle of this saying is a world of hidden information. So let me throw some important information, strange information into this discussion.

Man is a very complex creature, one of the most interesting creatures that has ever existed in this world or any other. The reason is because we have multiple brains. One exist during the daytime. The other exist in the night during REM and deep NREM sleep. They are very different beings within us.

If you went back several hundred years in time, you would find that humans generally would go to sleep when the sun went down and awake when the sun rose in the morning. But then many used fire to bring light into the darkness of night. In time we developed candles, electric lights, etc. so that we can functions in night or day.

I tend to be a night owl. I generally go to sleep around 2 or 3 A.M and get up around 9 P.M. But some people wake up early. They are early birds. Some will even get up when I am going to sleep. For example, people who bake our bread will get up very early and begin the process of combining flour and oil with other ingredients and make fresh bread for us in the morning.

Around 50 years ago, I had a job where I worked both swing and graveyard shift, 6 days a week. I was able to do this by living in a unique environment during my sleep cycle. I slept in a room where the light was completely shielded. No light, no sound could enter my sleep space. It was total dark and total silence. I did this for a year or two.

So we have been able to break a window that normally controls other lifeforms, their patterns of night and day.

Apples were definitely a cheap source of vitamins for the early American settlers. But in the case of Wales, in the early industrial revolution comprised some of the poorest souls in the British isles (along with Ireland). Poverty mean't reliance on monocultures (Irish reliance on potatoes). Likely the Welsh saw apples as a cheap available source fruit for their growing children to keep them from getting sick (making a connection between fruit preventing disease before the era of vitamin pills).

The term earning bread literally is street talk of equating money with bread which was the primary source of nutrition for most British working class households.

IIRC, all iterations of the "apple a day" rhyme were advertisement jingles written to help apple orchards to sell more apples, by making them seem critically healthy in the same manner that a lemon could prevent scurvy - which was still relevant back then, vs now. "An apple a day" was just an old-world equivalent of today's "These top 5 super-foods can keep you young and sexy!"

It's interesting that a lot of what we refer to as "common knowledge" is actually just "effective marketing" a lot of the time.

This discussion has now change over to wheat. I am not sure how this occurred but I love bread, home made bread. But I do not use wheat. I use a grain that began hundreds of years before wheat. It is called Spelt. It is a type of grain that makes a very hardy bread. I buy it by 50 pound sealed buckets that are sealed in a vacuum so that it can store for over 50 years. I take the grain and grind it in an electric grinder to make flour and then my wife makes bread. It is some of the best tasting bread in the world. We made some yesterday.

I agree. I have nothing against apples. But bananas are really special.
A banana a day keeps the doctor away.

I am not sure how far back in history the apple/day thing goes? but in medieval times apples were likely the main fruit for children to consume. Citrus such as oranges and lemons actually came through the middle east and grew mainly in the estates of wealth landlords in the medieval period of Europe. Purely based on accessibility alone apples were the most readily accessible cheap source of vitamin C up to the industrial era.