An apple a day keeps the doctor away. But how long would it take to try them all?

The Apple is such an iconic symbol and is normally the first image to pop into someone's mind when you say “fruit.” Everyone gets the same picture: A shiny, dark-red oval with a perfect little stem sprouting from the top. Despite the fact that we produce the same mental image, there are more species of apples in differing shapes and sizes that we even care to comprehend.

Care for a staggering statistic? If you ate a different variation of apple every day, it would take over 20 years to try them all. While it's tough to pinpoint an exact number, it is known more than 7,500 cultivars of apples exist with differing characteristics. Some are bred for certain tastes, cooking properties, and fermenting into cider.

Apples originated in Central Asia and have been grown for thousands of years in Asia and Europe. The apple was brought the North America by European colonists. The United States is second-leading apple producer, behind China, with 6% of world production.

It's tough to find another food that can be tied to so many religions, myths, and cultures as the apple. From the first bible stories to one of the biggest consumer-electronic brands today, there is no doubt it has reached everybody in some way.

(Source)