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posted by cmn32480 on Sunday May 29 2016, @03:47PM   Printer-friendly
from the keeping-the-doctor-away dept.

A recent study published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine and expanded upon by The Washington Post finds that providing sliced apples, rather than whole ones, increases the odds students will eat them and reduces waste.

A pilot study conducted at eight schools found that fruit consumption jumped by more than 60 percent when apples were served sliced. And a follow-up study, conducted at six other schools, not only confirmed the finding, but further strengthened it: Both overall apple consumption and the percentage of students who ate more than half of the apple that was served to them were more than 70 percent higher at schools that served sliced apples.

This mirrors McDonald's experience with Happy Meals.

In 2004, before any other fast food company was offering apple slices, McDonald's was adding them to its menu. At the time, the company was looking to introduce healthier options that would be attractive to children, and pre-sliced apples seemed like a good place to start.

"Sliced apples are often easier for children, especially young children, to eat," said Christina Tyler, a company spokesperson. "We simply wanted to make enjoying fruit easier and more fun for our youngest customers."

For years, the apples were offered as an optional side. But in 2012, the company began automatically serving them as part of Happy Meals. And the impact has been enormous.

While McDonald's wouldn't disclose how many apples it sold in the early years, it confirmed that it has served more than 2 billion packages since they were first offered. In 2015 alone, the company served almost 250 million packages of sliced apples, which amounts to just over 60 million apples, or more than 10 percent of all fresh sliced apples sold in the United States.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2013.02.003


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @04:11PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @04:11PM (#352278)

    Wouldn't that increase the chance that they'll hold it wrong?

    • (Score: 2) by inertnet on Sunday May 29 2016, @10:35PM

      by inertnet (4071) on Sunday May 29 2016, @10:35PM (#352377) Journal

      Not if they use the very expensive iSlicer.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by LoRdTAW on Sunday May 29 2016, @04:26PM

    by LoRdTAW (3755) on Sunday May 29 2016, @04:26PM (#352282) Journal

    Fun? What does fun have to do with eating right? Healthy food isn't supposed to be fun. It's not a game. It's sustenance that should enjoyed.

    Parents need to start feeding their kids properly since the day they are able to chew food. None of this kids meal nonsense. I ate what my parents ate. My mother always gave us fruit like apples, oranges, bananas, plums, and peaches. We ate them whole. We also had a salad with every meal, no dressing either until we were older and it was usually oil and vinegar. When you grow up eating right you wind up enjoying healthy foods. I love vegetables and I can easily snack on things like cucumbers, tomatoes, raw broccoli, raw spinach, carrots, green bell peppers, etc. I like cooking my own meals and I include vegetables like spinach, bok choy, squash, brussel sprouts, and broccoli. And I do that not because "I have to" but because I enjoy them. Sure I eat crap every now and then. Who doesn't? I just keep it to a minimum. (halal chicken and rice, pizza, burritos, and gourmet hamburgers are my weaknesses).

    And the schools also have to stop serving shit as well. Greasy mini pizzas, hamburgers, hot dogs, french fries, beef ravioli(junk food kind), chicken nuggets. And god forbid they serve a vegetable. It's usually boiled down into a bland, slimy mess. That isn't proper nutrition, it's garbage. It sabotages not only the kids nutrition but also the parents who are actually trying to feed their kids properly.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @04:30PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @04:30PM (#352283)

      Its the kids these days.

      • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Sunday May 29 2016, @04:42PM

        by LoRdTAW (3755) on Sunday May 29 2016, @04:42PM (#352288) Journal

        Who has the purchasing power to buy junk food? Certainly not the kids.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @05:10PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @05:10PM (#352294)

      I had the opposite experience. Growing up, my mother served me what they ate too and that included heaps of fruits and vegetables. According to her, one day, when I was roughly four years old, I just stopped liking them. I stopped eating fruit completely and to this day, only begrudgingly eat very specific vegetables. Citrus smell, particularly oranges is disgusting to me. I cannot be in the same room as someone with an open orange; it's awful to me. I have learned to tolerate vegetables; I do not gag the whole time like I did when I was younger.

      The only way I can describe it other people is that vegetables and dirt taste about the same to me. It just tastes like I am chewing on a mouth full of creamy dirt; I have to eat vegetables only lightly cooked as the soft consistency of cooked or canned vegetables makes me gag. I have definitely vomited because I started gagging hard on some overcooked string beans. I do not why or how it happened I started disliking fruits and vegetables; I have tried lots of different vegetables but it all just tastes like dirt in the end. I wish I could be one of those people who loves vegetables, can snack on carrot sticks or even eat a banana. But, until that happens, I treat my daily vegetables like taking a medication: eat it as fast possible and try not to think about it.

      • (Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday May 29 2016, @08:01PM

        by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 29 2016, @08:01PM (#352345) Journal

        When I was a kid I would only eat raw green vegetables and carrots (apart from green beans). To me they "tasted of the smell of smelly socks." I loved cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, sprouts, carrots, peas but only when totally raw. I also love all fresh fruit, and some dried fruit. I hated mushrooms.

        When I was about 20 years old, things changed. The "smelly socks" aroma from cooked vegetables faded away over a few months, and I acquired a taste for mushrooms. But I couldn't eat cheese (or any other dairy products, for that matter) any more. Sprouts still have a hint of smelly socks about them if over-cooked, but I can usually cope with that, otherwise they just taste nutty.

        Nowadays, about the only thing I really can't stand that I'm not actually allergic or intolerant to is honey. It tastes like "other people's saliva" if that makes any sense.

        • (Score: 2) by Marand on Monday May 30 2016, @12:29AM

          by Marand (1081) on Monday May 30 2016, @12:29AM (#352410) Journal

          I used to love certain fruits and vegetables as a kid that I later came to absolutely detest. Specifically, bananas and carrots (cooked or raw). I loved them up until a certain age, five or six maybe, then I got so I couldn't stand the taste any more. Green beans are another one I liked but later couldn't stand. Cauliflower I always hated, broccoli as well. I couldn't even tolerate most of them when cooked in other foods, the taste would be overwhelming and ruin the food to me.

          Eventually (mid 20s or so) I got where I can eat some of the things I hated, at least when prepared with other food, but I still hate bananas and cauliflower with a passion. So, some things I liked very young and hated later, while other things I hated later learned to like (at least in moderation), and still others I always hated and apparently always will.

          The one that always seemed strange to me, though, is sweets. I never liked sweets very much and still don't, though I have slightly higher tolerance now than I did. I like bitter or spicy tastes more than sweet ones, and like you I hate honey, though I find it more tolerable than what is probably my #1 food hate: cinnamon.

          • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 30 2016, @05:05AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 30 2016, @05:05AM (#352498)

            My revolting foods are peas, beans, beets, sweet potatoes, and okra.

            Don't know why. I love many vegetables known to be hated. Spinach, asparagus, Idaho potatoes ( especially the skin! ). I love corn ( but they ruin it if they cream it). If its green and leafy, I will probably love it. Tried dandelion but did not like it all that well. Tasted too much like tar paper.

            Even if one of the revolting foods is "sneaked in" hidden in something else, projectile evacuation is almost inevitable. I seem to have absolutely no control of it.

            • (Score: 2) by Marand on Monday May 30 2016, @05:37AM

              by Marand (1081) on Monday May 30 2016, @05:37AM (#352507) Journal

              I'm with you on sweet potatoes, can't stand the damn things. Okra's in a weird place for me, I normally don't care for it but it's fine if it's in gumbo or breaded and fried. Spinach is one I don't like most of the time, but find it's pretty good in on pizza or in cheese dips. Peas are usually kind of bland, but I noticed that different brands (if canned) or locations (for fresh) make a huge difference in taste. Good if they have more taste, just kind of boring otherwise. Same with corn, actually: I love good corn but a lot of it is borderline tasteless. Beans depends greatly on what type of bean. Pinto beans (good for chili) are pretty good, green beans are mostly not my thing, and I could go on because each type is a little different.

              One thing I noticed is that I like vegetables more than I originally thought, but it depends a lot on the quality and type of the vegetable (noted above) as well as how it's prepared and cooked. When I was growing up, though, my primary exposure to various vegetables came from how my family members made food, and they were the "boil each vegetable, put on plate separately, the only spices are salt, pepper, and occasionally garlic" type, so I hated it all.

              I've since discovered that it's not the vegetables, it's that I hate the "boil it until it's mushy and tasteless" style of cooking them. That, and I just tend to not like separated, individual food. I don't want a serving of corn, serving of potato, serving of meat, etc.; I prefer food that mixes things together. Add spices to a vegetable, or mix multiple vegetables together. Cook the beef with some peppers and onions. Things like that. I'll eat -- and enjoy -- a lot of foods I can't stand eating as a standalone portion in those situations.

              If it's something I absolutely do not like, it won't make me nauseous to encounter it in food, but I have noticed I'm extremely sensitive to its presence in other food. Like with the cinnamon and banana examples of my previous comment, I notice them even in the tiniest quantities in food, and it can completely ruin an otherwise good meal for me while nobody else can even taste them.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 29 2016, @05:16PM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 29 2016, @05:16PM (#352295) Journal

      I pretty much agree with you, LordTaw, but - there is a but. My kids ate what I ate when they were little. But, Daddy made a little bit of an effort to make their food enjoyable. Mother did too, but I can only speak for my own efforts. Dad is having eggs over easy for breakfast, with some hashbrowns, bacon, and toast. Dad looks at the kids, and knows they don't find his over-medium eggs very appealing. So, Dad cuts the centers out of three slices of bread, butters what is left of them, and throws them in the skillet to brown. Crack three eggs, one each into the center of each piece of toast. Wait a few minutes, and out comes this silly magical eggy inside of a slice of toast. The boys gobble them down, along with their hashbrowns and bacon. Just a silly little ritual, that made breakfast more "fun".

      Apples? Why not slice them? It takes little effort, costs nothing extra, and I can portion out one or two apples among the boys, reducing waste. Waste is already reduced once, because the boys think the sliced apples are "special".

      Parents can cater to their children, within reason, and still make healthy food choices. Believe me, my kids ate lots of dried beans, garden vegetables - I'm reminded. I was left at home with the kids one day, while the wife ran around with her sisters. Turn my back for a minute, and the two larger boys disappeared. I look all around the house, all around the yard, up and down the road - no boys. As time passes, I get more concerned, and I'm considering calling neighbors and maybe the law to help search for my two missing offspring. One more trip into the house to check on the baby in the crib, I come back outside, and hear a giggle. Walk out through the garden, to find them eating what they called "hot beans". The rascals were chowing down on the jalapeno peppers.

      Now, THAT is healthy eating! And, I guess the peppers were "special" because they were sneaking them behind Daddy's back!

      • (Score: 2) by black6host on Sunday May 29 2016, @09:09PM

        by black6host (3827) on Sunday May 29 2016, @09:09PM (#352354) Journal

        Not to mention that if you have a 7 year old, as I do, that is missing a significant portion of their front teeth, sliced apples can be a godsend.

    • (Score: 2) by shortscreen on Sunday May 29 2016, @07:11PM

      by shortscreen (2252) on Sunday May 29 2016, @07:11PM (#352329) Journal

      My grandfather was a dairyman. Nearly every meal included milk, cheese, or both. There was usually ice cream in the house, or we could make our own from cream and sugar (but that took work!). The longest span I can remember going without eating breakfast cereal was during one week that I was on vacation in another country.

      Vegetables? Gotta be mixed in with something else to make them palatable.

      • (Score: 2) by black6host on Sunday May 29 2016, @09:11PM

        by black6host (3827) on Sunday May 29 2016, @09:11PM (#352355) Journal

        Oh hell no! Separate plate or bowl for everything. And you have to eat the veggies first. hehehehe :)

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 30 2016, @01:53AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 30 2016, @01:53AM (#352448)

      > Healthy food isn't supposed to be fun.

      Spoken like someone who stumbled upon this site while looking for the Soylent home page.

    • (Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Monday May 30 2016, @02:21AM

      by Joe Desertrat (2454) on Monday May 30 2016, @02:21AM (#352460)

      It's usually boiled down into a bland, slimy mess.

      To be fair, that is usually the result of putting the cooked vegetables (probably exacerbated by using bulk canned vegetables) on steam tables, but yes, the end result is as you describe. They would be better off serving raw or grilled vegetables, but I suspect most school budgets do not allow for this.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by stormreaver on Sunday May 29 2016, @05:02PM

    by stormreaver (5101) on Sunday May 29 2016, @05:02PM (#352290)

    This one should have been from the, "no-shit-sherlock" department, as every parent discovers this early on. Talk about a waste of money. They could have just asked a few parents.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @05:37PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @05:37PM (#352302)

      Another one:

      But in 2012, the company began automatically serving them as part of Happy Meals. And the impact has been enormous.

      While McDonald's wouldn't disclose how many apples it sold in the early years, it confirmed that it has served more than 2 billion packages since they were first offered. In 2015 alone, the company served almost 250 million packages of sliced apples, which amounts to just over 60 million apples, or more than 10 percent of all fresh sliced apples sold in the United States.

      So... automatically serving by default and find out that... they have been served in huge quantities!!! Magic stuff!!!

      How many of those served apples have actually been eaten... now that would be more interesting! For all we know they have been all served to the trash can.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @05:35PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @05:35PM (#352301)

    The right way: You get a whole apple. You wash it, your hands, and a peeler. You peel it to remove surface contamination. (from birds, workers, and rats) After peeling, you wash it again because contaminants that didn't get washed off have gotten onto the apple surface.

    It might be nice to eat the peel, but normally apples are waxed to prevent moisture loss. The wax locks in the germs. You can't wash away the contamination, at least not without a hot organic solvent.

    Pre-cut apples mix in all the germs. The kids are unlikely to have a way to wash the slices, and it wouldn't work very well anyway.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @07:41PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @07:41PM (#352335)

      There is absolutely nothing sanitary about children. They are snot-nosed germ factories. They are by both metric and imperial measurements the filthiest creatures known to science. If anything, the child will contaminate the apple by eating it, not the other way around. Any helicopter parent who worries about apples being too unsanitary for his precious snotflake needs to come before the Darwin commission to have his reproduction-and-childrearing license reviewed, because it's clear that he lacks the ability to pass on common sense to his offspring.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathElk on Sunday May 29 2016, @10:47PM

      by DeathElk (4834) on Sunday May 29 2016, @10:47PM (#352381)

      Fuck that, just eat the fucking thing.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Flyingmoose on Monday May 30 2016, @12:44AM

      by Flyingmoose (4369) <mooseNO@SPAMflyingmoose.com> on Monday May 30 2016, @12:44AM (#352414) Homepage

      I've eaten apples for years without even washing them once. Never made me sick.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @06:34PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @06:34PM (#352315)

    Parents underestimate, or are unaware of, the physical differences between childrens and adults mouth size and taste buds.

    What might seem small and easy to eat for you, can be big and unpleasant for a kid. Those chopped up vegetables that you eat so easily? Consider chopping them up a bit finer, so the kids can enjoy them too.
    I remember my parents used to sometimes buy bread with whole grains still in them. I absolutely loathed them, so much so that I would pick each of them out before eating. Now I barely notice them when eating.

    And kids are much more sensitive to the taste of bitter, which is why they don't like things such as coffee and brussels sprouts. You don't "learn to like them". Your taste physically changes as you grow up, making you notice the bitter taste much less. So stop forcing kids to eat them whole saying they taste fine. They really don't. Not yet anyway.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @07:09PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @07:09PM (#352328)

      Kids try things until about age 2. At that point, tastes get locked in place for many years. You have to start really early.

      Brussels sprouts are a special case. Like all cruciform vegetables, they are briefly delicious while passing from horrible undercooked to horrible overcooked. (bluish cast is undercooked, bright green is delicious, yellowish cast is overcooked) Because of the shape, the outside gets overcooked before the inside gets cooked. You have to slice them in halves or quarters to let the heat in.

      FWIW, my kids love Brussels sprouts. Steaming works best. Add a bit of lemon juice or perhaps some red wine vinegar.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by MorePower on Sunday May 29 2016, @07:57PM

    by MorePower (5891) on Sunday May 29 2016, @07:57PM (#352344)

    Even as a 40-something adult, I find apple slices way more appealing than whole apples.
    It's because you can finish an apple slice, with a whole apple you always have a disgusting, sticky core turning brown in your hand which you gingerly try to hold without getting any of the grossness on you as you start searching for a trash can to rid yourself of the disgusting mess.
    Knowing what the near future holds grosses me out such that I never want to start into that apple.

    • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday May 29 2016, @08:59PM

      by aristarchus (2645) on Sunday May 29 2016, @08:59PM (#352353) Journal

      Yes. I feel the same way about people, too. But not just adults. There is always that residium after you eat them that needs to be disposed of. Soylent is much more convenient.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @09:16PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @09:16PM (#352357)

      Why drop ther core in a bin, when there is perfectly good dirt everywhere.

      • (Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Monday May 30 2016, @02:25AM

        by Joe Desertrat (2454) on Monday May 30 2016, @02:25AM (#352461)

        I cut the core into pieces and toss them on the back deck. They are a delicacy for the squirrels.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @10:32PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @10:32PM (#352374)

      If you eat apples top down instead of sideways you never notice the tiny harder sections of the apples and the seeds pass through as they evolved to do. All you have left is the stem and you can pick that off while you're still in the store. I think Germans eat apples this way. As an American adult, I eat apples the inefficient and wasteful way and prefer apple slices. I have a beard and don't want apple juices running down it.

    • (Score: 2) by jdavidb on Monday May 30 2016, @02:15AM

      by jdavidb (5690) on Monday May 30 2016, @02:15AM (#352457) Homepage Journal
      The cores don't gross me out, but it works on me, too. I am much more likely to eat a sliced apple than unsliced. I only found this out a few years ago; I have no idea why it is true. It was worth buying an extra apple slicer and taking it to work to keep in my desk.
      --
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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 30 2016, @08:44AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 30 2016, @08:44AM (#352562)

      I stopped eating apples when my mother decided that I was too old to cut it into slices and remove the core.

      Ever since, she's been complaining that I don't eat fruit (most other kind of fruit contains seeds of some form as well).

    • (Score: 2) by Nuke on Monday May 30 2016, @09:48PM

      by Nuke (3162) on Monday May 30 2016, @09:48PM (#352773)

      It was as a child watching the disgusting mess that my parents made of fruit, especially apples and oranges, that by revulsion made me a tidy person. For example my mother sucked the juice out of orange segments and put the shrivelled remainder down on the table. Apple stalks could turn up anywhere, like in the kitchen sink or on the bookshelf. So for years I avoided fruit but now eat it only if prepared such that I can spoon it into my mouth with nothing left over - ie mostly tinned fruit but also fresh seedless grapes..

      When in public places like on a train someone gets an apple out their bag my heart sinks. They eat it leaving a core, and then you can see on their face it suddenly occurring to them that there is nowhere to dispose of it. They sit holding it out like a crystal ball while glancing around for what they can get away with, and in one case they leaned across me to perch it on a narrow window ledge, where from two feet away I had to watch the mess dripping and going brown for the next hour. Disgusting.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by archfeld on Sunday May 29 2016, @11:27PM

    by archfeld (4650) <treboreel@live.com> on Sunday May 29 2016, @11:27PM (#352394) Journal

    Can't we deep fry them and ruin any possible health benefit derived from eating them ?

    --
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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 30 2016, @04:36PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 30 2016, @04:36PM (#352674)

      Didn't you try to microwave them? Some sugar, lemon juice and cinammon...

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 30 2016, @01:50AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 30 2016, @01:50AM (#352445)

    A fussy eater who dislikes eating the bitter skin that Red Delicious apples have might prefer slices to a whole, unpeeled apple. With the slices, it's easy to eat just the flesh and discard the skin.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by bradley13 on Monday May 30 2016, @06:23AM

    by bradley13 (3053) on Monday May 30 2016, @06:23AM (#352516) Homepage Journal

    This isn't anything particularly surprising. It has nothing to do with fruit, and nothing to do with children. Provide "bite-sized" food, and more of it gets eaten.

    Go to any party where they provide munchies, and look at the size of the food: it's all sized so that you can pop a bite into your mouth. With larger portions (including whole fruits), you get questions: "What if I don't want the whole thing", "I'm gonna need a napkin", and for things that aren't completely edible (like apple cores) "what do I do with the rest". Not conscious questions, maybe, but the questions are there.

    All in all, prepared food is easier to eat, so people eat more of it. You can also deliberately reverse this: make food more difficult to deal with, and people will eat less.

    --
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  • (Score: 1) by Gault.Drakkor on Monday May 30 2016, @06:02PM

    by Gault.Drakkor (1079) on Monday May 30 2016, @06:02PM (#352694)

    Something i don't see here is jaw strength and size.

    When I was growing up we had orchard with 12 apple trees of 11 various varieties. Anyhow there is a big difference trying to eat a small apple(~5cm diameter) vs large(12cm diameter). I couldn't take a big bite out of a large apple-too tough. I often had to use incisors to get the initial cut into the skin and then small nibbles. Where as small or sliced apples were much easier to sink my teeth into. Once I was bigger/older that stopped being an issue.

    My point is ease of actually getting food into your mouth to chew is probably something to be considered.