I like trying new hacks, learning new stuff, and busting myths, so when I stumbled upon this Facebook video, I was gasping:
In the Facebook video, which has more than 33 million views, it shows a way to remove wax with hot water and lemon. But I was really shocked by the amount that came off. So much so that I didn't believe it! So I decided to try out the hack myself.
Before we begin, I would like to say that apples actually product their own wax naturally to reduce moisture loss and keep them fresh, but a lot of that wax gets washed off during the picking and distributing process. So some places add on a coat of edible, synthetic wax to add shine and make them look more appetizing to buy — and the apple industry says it also helps protect the produce.
Now, let's get to the experiment! First, you place an apple over a cup and then put it in a larger pan or bowl to catch the excess water.
Then, you pour hot water over it and squeeze lemon juice over the top so it creates a pool in the upper crevice of the apple.
Next, you pour hot water over it again, supposedly activating the lemon juice to help remove the wax.
After doing this, it didn't seem to make that much of a difference — and I certainly did not see a significant amount of wax come off.
However, I definitely could see a difference in the cloudiness of the two glasses that captured the water coming off the apple (the two glasses on the left) when compared to the plain water (on the right).
I was happy that my apples didn't have this much wax, but I knew they still had some because I could see it by just scraping it off with a butter knife:
So I decided to try to boil the wax off in boiling hot water and lemon juice. Right away, I could see the wax start to come off:
I didn't boil the very top to see if I could tell a difference. So, after about three minutes, the apple lost a lot of its coloring from being boiled, but I also saw a white line of the wax coating around the top where it had come off.
So now we know that YES, apples have wax. But HOPEFULLY they do not have as much as what was shown in that viral Facebook video.
