''The jazz and the pink lady are not great apples.
''They have been engineered on sweetness, shapes, colours and resistance to disease. But mostly sugar, sugar, sugar.
''It's wrong. That's not the definition of a good food. We are addicted to sugar and the retailers know it,'' Blanc told Britain's The Sunday Telegraph.
''Our taste is now so neutralised that we identify taste with sweetness.
''Sugar is not a good taste. For any great taste, you need contradictions, a mix of sweet, sour, acid, bitter or salty.''
But, told of the comments yesterday, Mr Webb was miffed.
''The more sunlight you get, the more sugars you get in your fruit.
''That's a good thing, isn't it?''
Mr Webb, owner-operator of Webb's Family Orchard, grows and exports jazz and other varieties, including to the United Kingdom.
All apples had naturally-occurring sugar levels of between 12 per cent and 15 per cent - even the Cox's orange pippin, which simply masked the sweetness behind a higher acid content, he said.
Market forces also dictated New Zealand growers' preference for sweet-tasting apples, he said.
''What's the point of growing a sour, tart apple, if the consumers aren't going to buy it?
''Jazz are a beautiful eating apple.''
Despite the sweet taste, the sugar content of an apple was still ''a lot less than your average breakfast cereal'', he added.
''It's sort of like nature's confectionery ... it's a good healthy choice for the kids.''
Nutritionist Amanda Foubister, of Auckland, said the sugar content of apples changed as they aged, and depended more on ripeness than variety.
''If you had an overripe Granny Smith versus a rose apple that was underripe, then the underripe rose apple's going to have a lower brix [sugar] level,'' she said.
''I'd never say that an apple is bad for you.''
