Wax on, wax off. Wax on again.
You may have noticed that when you run a knife over a store-bought apple, wax scrapes off — but Kait Thornton (@apple.girl.kait), an apple and pear farmer in Washington State, promises this isn’t some unhealthy added ingredient.
“There’s so much fear-mongering around food and where our food comes from and I don’t want you guys to be scared of what you’re putting in your bodies — especially when it’s something that is such a superfood like apples are,” she said.
Thronton is a fourth-generation farmer and runs the 440-acre Thronton Family Farms in Tonasket, Washington with her dad, Geoff.
In a viral video that’s racked up 5.3 million views, she broke down just what the deal is with that apple wax, explaining a process that she says dates back to the 1920s.
First, she showed off two apples from her farm. The first, on the left, came straight from a tree and looks healthy but not so pretty or shiny, covered with a clay that protects it from the sun.
On the right is an apple that’s been through the cleaning process and is perfectly shiny and bright. But when Thornton ran a knife over it, wax scrapings came off.
“That might shock you guys that there is wax on store-bought apples, but let me know you the thing with this apple that’s straight off the tree,” she said.
She then picked up the less pretty apple and scraped it as well — and wax came off of that one, too. That wax is the cuticle of the apple, a naturally occurring protective layer that many fruits and vegetables have.
“The apple produces a natural wax on it, and this helps with water retention, so it doesn’t get all wrinkly,” she explained. “It also looks very attractive to any species that might want to eat it. And it’s super important for the overall health of the apple.”
When those apples are sent to be cleaned to be sold, any dirt and chemicals are washed off — but so is that natural wax.
New food-grade wax is added at the end to restore the apple’s protective layer to stop it from spoiling too quickly, getting infected by fungi, or losing nutrients.
Thornton listed three of the most common waxes used to replace the apple’s natural cuticle: beeswax, carnauba wax from the leaves of the carnauba palm tree, and shellac, which comes the resin secreted by the lac insect.
The farmer’s educational video has clearly been eye-opening for viewers, with some joking that apples have “skincare” and “produce that wax partly to look pretty for us.”
“As a nutritionist that actively fights against the fear mongering of food, THANK YOU,” wrote one commenter.
Another plans to show the video to their dad, writing, “He’s going through a phase where he thinks all store produce is poison and GMO.”
“I love hearing from our actual farmers and producers. They have such a HUGE wealth of specialized, amazing knowledge. They keep the world running and we should all want to learn from them,” wrote another viewer.
