Gross...Brown Apples

I brought an apple back to my room after eating lunch at Tilly last week, and within minutes after eating it, I happened to glance at my desk where i put the rest of the apple, and it had already turned brown. Why do apples even turn brown? Well, here's your answer...

Once you cut the fruit, you open up some of the cells. The enzyme then has access to oxygen in the air and it does its thing, turning the fruit brown. This is the same thing that causes brown spots in apples when you drop them. The easiest way to prevent browning is to put the sliced apples in water so that the enzyme does not have access to oxygen. You can also heat the apples to denature the enzyme.

Even though it seems like a little bit of a hassle, the next time you bring an apple to school/work for a snack, use what you have learned so that when you pull out your afternoon snack, you are not munching on a brown apple.