The Most Perfect Food ...

... of this season, that is.

The apple might possibly be the most perfect food when fall is here and they are ripe for the picking (as they saying goes).

Eating with the seasons affords your digestion the opportunity to work less hard and get what it needs for the current seasonal conditions. While we love strawberries and avocados throughout the year, eating a New England ripe apple in the fall is exactly what this Northern Hemispheric body needs.

Lets wax on about how perfect the apple is... wait, lets get that wax OFF the apple!! Can you get to a farmers market, a farm stand, or the organic section of your grocer? Great, there you will find apples sans wax. Snow White may have been charmed by that shimmering finish, but you shouldn't be. If you have stopped spraying Pledge on your furniture (you should have by now) , then you shouldn't have the very same sprayed onto your apple skin. Go for a fresh red apple and it will be shiny all on its own.

Apples travel so well. Toss one in your lunch bag and you have the perfect side to your meal or snack for later. How about some nut or seed butter with that apple? Or cinnamon? Have you chopped one up for your salad yet or roasted apple pieces with your squash in the oven? Go for it. Apples taste as great seasoned with savory herbs like thyme as they do with nutmeg and allspice.

And, please for the love of your gut, leave on the skin!! All the polyphenols and bioflavanoids ,not to mention fiber and prebiotics, are right there in that red shiny flesh. Should you desire a peeled apple for your pie, save those skins and eat them on their own, dehydrate them for salad topping, or keep them raw for the same. Those skins are their own medicine for this body and tossing them out is like tossing out some of those expensive vitamins your just paid for. Mother nature knows what she is doing and we shouldn't mess up her formula. Eat the skin!!

An apple a day, keeps the doctor away? Of all silly statements, that one seems to hold some truth. Since constipation, and other poor digestion concerns, leads many to their PCP, the inclusion of apples as a daily part of your diet can make significant improvements to your bowel function and keep you (or your kiddo) out of the doctors office. And, this is the tastiest fiber supplement on the market - take that Metamucil.

This post could stretch on for pages as I am an apple-in-the-fall lover, but the bottom line to keep it simple, is eat the apple. Raw, cooked, sweetened, savory, plain or with your favorite meal. Try different varieties, especially the odd ones that are way less familiar as that type could be local to you and not grown a thousand miles away.

Leave me your recipes below. How do you love your apples? Which are your favorite?

Happy picking!