We have what I call a “Franken” apple tree in our back yard, that harvest three different times with three different varieties. The ready ones now are the Macintosh, and they’re bursting with crunchy, juicy yumminess. I make sure I’m VERY good to this tree, because you can’t always be sure what you’re getting with store-bought apples, which skins are often pumped up with pesticides. Old ‘Frank-Apple’ may not win any beauty pageants, but it’s the cleanest apple you’ll ever eat–even the fertilizer I use is organic.

Home-grown apples often have a thicker skin which means more fiber to buffer any sugar spikes the fructose content of the apple. Sure it’s sweet, but I’m a hopeless sweets addict and I’m always looking for the “angle,” some way I can stay on my paleo path by pushing that sugary envelop even further. Apples get the green light from the paleo gods, and so does almond butter and GASP!! maple sugar.

MaraNatha Raw Almond Butter has been a godsend to me. You can get it at most health food stores and as almond butters go, it’s relatively inexpensive–$6.99 as compared to #$11 and up.

So know I get a scrum-delish apple, smeared with almond butter with not one, but TWO dollops of this stuff which only adds three additional grams of NATURAL sugar, plus six grams of protein and three more grams of fiber. More fiber, means a slower sugar spike and makes for more pleasant bathroom breaks. Wish they had this stuff when my mother was  engaging me in her Fleet enema tortures…

Try this treat thirty minutes before your next work out, and you’ll be thanking me.