OK to eat the apples off a public apple tree?

There’s an apple tree outside my office. It has big, rosy, delicious-looking apples. The apples fall to the ground and rot. I think this is a huge waste. Is there any health-based reason why I shouldn’t eat the apples? Are some varieties of apples toxic? Could the tree be sprayed with carcinogenic pesticides? Could the apples pick up noxious contaminants or parasites from the ground that couldn’t be removed by washing?

peeling the apple is a good idea if you’re worried about any pollution. It would mostly be in the peel.

As you mentioned, they will fall off the tree anyhow and rot. Its better that someone gets to enjoy and eat the apple.

I wouldn’t take the off the ground. Pick them off the tree and enjoy.

Horribly, I read the title as “OK to eat the SPIDERS off a public apple tree?”

What the hell is wrong with me???

:frowning:

I would not only peel them, but cut them up, as well. There are boring insects that attack different fruits.

Hard to imagine, if the fruit is then being left to rot.

I pick serviceberries from a large shrub at my workplace, haven’t keeled over yet.

Can’t say. But earlier this week I read an abcnews.com headline as “Life Inside the Small North Dakota Town Terrorized by White Pharmacist”.

“No statins for you.”

Apple-Man! Apple-Man!
Doing the things an apple can!
Hangs around,
Turning red.
falls right off,
on Newtons head.

With great flavor comes great responsibility.

If you plan to cook the apples, i.e. make apple butter then I wouldn’t worry too much about it, but if you plan to eat them raw I would peel and wash them good and slice them so you can find any worms that might be hiding inside.

If it was me I would contact the city/town and tell them they should collect the apples and donate them to the local good bank. If they say it’s a bad idea because they aren’t an edible variety that would be good to know.

Let’s not forget about the exciting insects too.

The concern I would have would be that the apples aren’t the eating kind.

Johnny Appleseed didn’t go around planting apple trees because he was hungry, he wanted people to make cider.

I seem to recall reading that most apple trees produce the kind you would juice, not the ones you’d eat.

Yeah, when you plant an apple seed you have no clue what kind of apple tree you’ll be getting. You have to graft a branch from a desirable variety to existing root stock to guarantee the result. We owe a debt to Ol’ Johnny Appleseed. All those trees he planted is why we have so many edible varieties.

Wow. When we were kids we just used to take apples off of the tree down the street from the school, wash them with water from a nearby garden hose, eat around the worms and toss the core on the ground. The biggest danger we took into consideration was getting caught. If we bit into a non-edible apple we just spit it out.

So now we would be arrested for theft of apples, trespassing, taken to a doctor for possible worms and given a ticket for littering. And we probably wouldn’t be educated enough to spit out a bad apple. Progress.

Go eat that damn big, rosy, delicious-looking apple.

But what if they really are spiders? (Shudders)

What is the non eating kind? If they don’ t taste how you like, don’t keep eating. It’s not going to hurt you.

Tell that to Snow White or Giselle.

The notion of poison apples is ingrained in our culture and mythology. Is this all myth? Do we know for certain that there is no such thing as a poison apple? Not even in the more mundane sense that just makes you sick or kills you and doesn’t require the intervention of a handsome prince?

The only ‘apples’ that might actually be seriously toxic aren’t actually apples at all*. Anything in the genus Malus is edible (it might be horribly bitter, sour, woody or bug-ridden, but it won’t be poisonous.

*There are plenty of things that look superficially like apples, but are poisonous or inedible. Manchineel is probably the most notorious example.

Yes, it’s myth. It’s myth because apples are so wholesome and good, that a poisoned apple is the biggest perversion and betrayal one can imagine. It’s like making a toxic puppy.

Right. And if you’re worried it might be a Manchineel (it isn’t, not if it was planted on purpose near a building full of people) put on a pair of gloves and break a leaf. If it oozes milky white sap, run away. Also, Manchineels stay green, not red.

There are a lot of ornamental or “crab” apples that aren’t tasty, but they’re not dangerous. May give you a belly ache if you force yourself to eat the not-tasty unripe fruit, but…don’t do that.

This. A thousand times this.