What is the reason for it in the first place and how dangerous is this to your health? Seems to me organic or not, most apples have a wax coating on them. How can I
effectively get rid of this wax coating before consuming?
I usually get my organic produce in health food stores, and I’ve yet to encounter an organic apple with wax. Of course, organic laws may vary from place to place, but here in California, they are very stringent.
Well, I live in apple country, so I called my ol’buddy MacPherson, who works at an orchard.
Why the wax?
Makes 'em pretty.
Danger, danger Will Robinson
None that I’m aware of. It’s organic food wax. Unless you’re eating huge chunks of it, pounds at a time (which would probably lead to blockage), it just passes through your system. It’s even safer than the wax they use for those wax lips that people used to give out on Hallowe’en.
Most apples have a wax coating?
Well, the orchard Big Mac works at where I get my apples and cider donuts doesn’t put wax on them, because they just haul them in in bushel baskets straight from the trees through the washing station into the store. But supermarket apples usually have wax on them, because they’ve been shipped from places and they’re not as pretty once they’ve been loaded into crates and sent over the road and rail.
Wax removal
Try washing the apple in warm water and rubbing it gently with a towel. The heat should soften the wax and the towel should get it off. This is all in theory on my part, keep in mind, because I don’t buy waxed apples, but it sure seems like it ought to work…
I would imagine that the wax helps prevent premature spoilage. Apples emit a gas when they are going bad which permeates the other apples and accelerates their spoiling too (Remember the saying: One bad apple spoils the whole bunch)
I can possibly see the wax acting as a “gasproof barrier” to prevent a single bad apple from spoiling the whole lot. It makes more sense than simply waxing them for aesthetic reasons, but that’s just me. I don’t know for sure…
“gas-waxing” the apples makes sense, if it works (the gas might be wax-permeable; i haven’t done research). Keep in mind my informants here are my common sense and a 19-year-old orchard worker 
Waxing for aesthetic reasons isn’t really all that far-fetched though considering some of the other things companies do to make their food look appetizing.
If you’re afraid of wax, don’t eat honey.
It’s allowed to contain a fair percentage of beeswax. Keeps it from getting too thin.
Thanks for the info racinchikki. could you please elaborate on the organic wax is not harmful angle for me? I absolutely need to know more about this. 
Ok, I warn you again, this is according to a 19-year-old apple picker, and a 17-year-old geniu’s common sense:
The food-grade wax they use on apples (or at least the kind they’re SUPPOSED to use on apples) is essentially the same kind of wax produced by plants. Some kinds of berries fruits have this waxy stuff in them naturally and it’s that which is the chemical base for the food-grade apple-wax.
Unless you are a compulsive apple-hog, you will probably never eat more than a gram of wax a week. At MOST. Just think, there’s a thin thin layer of wax on the apple. If you scraped it off with a penknife you’d come up with these little tiny applewax shavings. That wax will pass straight in and out of your system, just like all the other useless/undigestible/unneeded-at-this-moment things you ingest daily. It doesn’t build up in your body.
The only danger from the apple-wax I can think of would be if you found a pound of it and ate it like a chocolate bar. That would probably cause some flow problems as it tried to pass through.
If you’re still really worried about the applewax, you can always just peel your apples with a knife! It doesn’t penetrate the skin, it just sits on top.
Arn’t pesticides wax based to keep them from washing off in the rain? I wash most fruits with soapy water just in case.
Sorry, but I didn’t want to start my own post for this simple question. Anyone know the pH level of an apple? My family was discussing it today because my dad has an upset stomach.
On topic, I’m sure there are a vast number of places to buy “pure” apples and even more ways to rid yourself of the waxy build-up when you buy them like that. Q-tips come to mind. Hey, they work for my ears!
Something’s amiss here - you’re worried about effects on your health, and you’re eating organic produce? I don’t worry too much about impurities in the food I eat, but if I did, I would avoid organic.
About the wax - I recall when I was a kid that my mom and older sisters would have a chunk of wax in the kitchen for making chocolate glazes firm enough so they wouldn’t be runny. The block of wax came in a box that said “GulfWax,” and had the the trademark symbol of Gulf Petroleum on it.
From this, I would suspect that the chocolate around candy bars must contain something like wax.
If the apples are waxed after being sprayed by pesticides, does that make the pesticides harder to wahs off?
I read this thread and immediately thought about alar.
http://www.pma.com/news/issues/issue9.htm
More than you really wanted to know about wax and apples.
DonnaAE, pesticides are not wax-based (at least none that I sell are) because they have to be mixed with water and sprayed through a nozzle that has (typically) a very small orifice. Wax would gum everything up.
lee, yes wax would make pesticides difficult to wash off but the apples are washed before waxing. Why go to the trouble of waxing fruit for appearances sake if it’s not clean first?
And just to make everyone’s day, you should know that the latest trend in pesticides is systemic and trans-laminar chemicals. This type of pesticide is actually designed to move into the plant tissues. Wash all you want, they’re not going anywhere.
That said,<soapbox> remember that food grown with properly used pesticides is safer, cheaper, and more abundant than the alternative.</soapbox>
[sarcasm]That wax is almost certainly soluble in an organic solvent such as heptane or hexane. For those without access to a chemical supply warehouse, common gasoline will dissolve the wax.[/sarcasm]
[hijack]Am I the only person who can’t stand the use of the word ‘organic’ when referring to certain ways of growing food? All food is organic. So is that wax. <sigh> [/hijack]
The pH of an apple varies; it should be between 4.5 and 6.5 (rough guesses). The tarter the apple (Granny Smith, Winesap) the lower the pH; less tart apples (Jonathan, Goldens) should have higher pH.
The wax is completely harmless to you. Wax will pass through your system without stopping, without the harmful side effects of Olean and so forth. It simply doesn’t dissolve in water and so passes out of your digestive tract without dissolving well, and without picking up any vitamins (which is one of the problems with Olean).
Pesticides generally should not stick in the wax; as Shiva notes, though, that likely won’t matter soon enough.
The gas (ethene) that is emitted by the apples, however, will almost certainly diffuse through the wax; the wax is therefore not a barrier against ripening/overripening. That ‘one bad apple’ quote refers more to molding than anything else. However, your apples will stay fresher longer if you take them out of their bags, and put them in the refrigerator (this is pretty much true of all fruit).
LL
Yes, they produce ethene when ripening, not when spoiling. In fact spoiling apples tend to produce acetones as a byproduct of the mould (IIRC) & smell sweet & musty because of it.
Cooling them slows ripening as it slows any physical process. Separating them slows the ripening since ethene accelerates ripening in other fruit nearby (not just apples, as far as I am aware, all fruit). Carbon dioxide slows ripening too. Many transport containers for fruit are flooded with CO2 - it has the opposite effect of the ethene & has the added benefit that any fruit eating insects that may be in there are suffocated/rendered inactive for the journey.