Why some apples are mushy & mealy (and how to save them!)

What you see/experience: An apple with an icky, sandy texture; it’s mealy.
What it is: A mealy apple! It’s been stored for a while and lost some of its moisture and texture with age.
Eat or toss: If it doesn’t bother you too much, keep eating. If it does, chop it and zap it in the microwave. The mealy texture will probably transform to something more akin to chunky apple sauce. Top with granola and yogurt for breakfast.

Apples get mealy with age

Fresh apple flesh is crisp and plump, rewarding us eaters with a juicy snap when we bite into it. That’s because the apple’s cells are tightly packed with liquid. When you take a bite, you snap open cells and those juices spill into your mouth (and maybe down your arm) in a delicious way.

As apples age, however, their cells lose moisture and the glue holding them together weakens. Further, while it may look solid, there’s a fair amount of air space within apple flesh (as much as a quarter of an apple’s volume is occupied by air, as opposed to 5 percent in a pear, reports Harold McGee in On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen). That means that these deflated, loosened cells have room to shift around. So, when you take that bite, instead of a juicy, cell-popping snap, you get a sloshy, mushy mass of intact cells.

Mealy apples can still be salvaged and eaten

But a mealy apple isn’t a lost cause. When I encounter one too mealy to be enjoyable, I chop it and microwave it until it’s all soft and juicy. The result is something like chunky apple sauce. Macarena Farcuh, an assistant professor in horticulture at the University of Maryland, notes that this could be because high temperatures will open up cells and bring previously separated contents, including juices, together. Top with some cinnamon, granola and yogurt and your mealy apple is now a cozy breakfast!

Talk about a mealy mouth!