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Apple season has finally arrived in North America. This is the time for apple picking and lots of apple eating!

It’s safe to say that most people who aren’t big fruit eaters will at least have an apple here and there. It’s also safe to say that among all the fruits sold at markets and grocery stores in North America, apples are the most popular among them.

The great thing about apples is that they are not only great tasting fruits, but they are really good for your health and your skin.

You’ll notice there are so many different types of apples at the grocery store and at markets and you can choose from tart tasting ones to the sweeter varieties. In fact, there are over several thousand different varieties of apples grown around the world!

Here are six practical reasons why apples are a great fruit:

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Halloween candy here, Halloween candy there, Halloween candy everywhere!

That should truly be the theme for the month of October.

I can tell you that I’ve noticed that most grocery stores and drugstores had started selling Halloween candy just after they had stored away the back to school supply. Yup, stores have been selling Halloween candy since the second week of September!

This is the time of year where things start getting a bit scary in most offices. By scary I mean you’ll start finding a lot more candy and goodies around the office and the temptation to eat far more candy than anyone will ever need is just that much easier.

When you combine the amount of sugar most people eat in October to the fact that most of us will be partying it up at Halloween parties where there will be alcohol and some not-so-healthy-snacks, you can see how you can end up the month of October with a few extra pounds.

I’m a firm believer in detoxification because it’s something I do on a regular basis and it’s also something I feel to be essential in ensuring that my body works at it’s best and that my skin glows radiantly. A few years ago, I did a 15-day juice fast and my skin had never looked that good and my body was functioning perfectly. Just to be clear, during those two weeks, I didn’t eat any solid foods and only had vegetable juices, fruit juices, herbal teas and water. The first few days of not eating felt like cruelty and I often dreamt about food at night. By the end of week one, my body and mind had gotten used to the fact that I would not be eating food.

How many appetizers can one consume in a day or an evening during party-hopping season? Far more that you think!

Appetizers and snacks may not seem like food in comparison to sitting down with a plate (a fork and a knife), but they will considerably add to your calorie load because you can easily overindulge when it comes to those bite-size portions that are so popular at this time of the year.

You see, when it comes to appetizers, most of us stand in front of a table, chatting up a storm, reminiscing about the year that has passed all the while popping copious amounts of bite-size food in our mouths.

*** Beauty Match in Paris ***

You will not be able to convince a French person to forfeit bread. That’s simply never (EVER) going to happen. Bread, just like pretty much anything food related in France is a sensual experience. Bread has always been and is still very much of an art in France. I may somewhat control my bread intake here at home, but I’ll tell you that if give me a warm freshly baked piece of French bread with butter and jam, I could live on that alone.

Bread has never been something to shy away from in France. There is no such thing in France as the fear of carbohydrates.

*** Beauty Match in London (U.K.)***

While riding the London tube, I was reading one of the freebie papers when my jaw dropped open. The headline was startling: “Grapefruit link to breast cancer” (as originally reported in the Daily Mail). I thought to myself, how can it be? Grapefruits are raw foods that are supposed to be part of the type of foods one should eat to keep healthy and help us age better.

Well, it turns out that grapefruits boosts estrogen levels in women, especially post-menopausal women. This increase in hormone level may be the link between grapefruits and breast cancer.

If you were enjoying the late summer weather over the weekend, chances are you missed a pretty informative special investigation report on CNN. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, who is CNN’s health expert, exposed: ‘America’s Killer Diet’ in order to explain how Americans really eat and over eat.

Some of the facts are what you’d expect from this type of investigation on Americans’ diet and their eating habits, but many other facts are quite shocking. For instance, Dr. Sanjay Gupta reveals that the average American kid consumes about 3 lbs (1.36 KG) of sugar per week …most of it hidden inside foods and drinks!