I’ll (hopefully) be on a plane around when you read this, and I’m pretty sure I won’t have an apple on me. — Dan

“An apple a day keeps the doctor away” — that’s the adage virtually everyone has heard. Apples are a great food choice — they are high in fiber, taste good, and won't break the budget.

Unless you go to New Zealand.

To be clear, you can buy apples in New Zealand — a kilogram of the fruit will cost you about NZ$4 (which comes out to a bit more than a buck US per pound, if I did my math right). That's perfectly affordable. But if you buy the apple before you come into the country, well, you might want to watch out. Because that may cost you a lot more, as Oscar-winning actress Hilary Swank learned in 2005.

In January of that year, Swank took a 20-hour flight from Los Angeles to Auckland. Before she got on the flight, her husband packed her a snack — some fresh fruit. But Swank didn’t eat all of it when she landed. That seems like no big deal, but New Zealand didn't see it that way. When Swank made her way through customs, an official confiscated the fruit and imposed a fine on the spot of NZ$200 (about $115 US), per the BBC.

As the Today Show explains, “New Zealand is largely free of insect pests that cause billions of dollars in damage to crops and livestock in other parts of the world. The country has extremely strict quarantine guidelines to keep such pests from entering the country.” And the island nation, rightfully fearing invasive species, doesn’t make exceptions. You have to declare any produce (or other plants) that you bring with you — failure to do so results in an immediate fine. (If the produce isn’t allowed, you're not in trouble, but you will have to throw it out.)

Swank, though, wasn’t taking “pay us" for an answer. She appealed the fine. In a handwritten note, as reported by the Guardian, Swank explained that "I simply forgot I had one orange and one apple" and that she "apologize[d] sincerely.” It was an honest mistake, after all, and how much damage can one or two pieces of fruit (which were disposed of immediately anyway) do?

The court didn’t care. Per the BBC, they ruled against Swank, and raised the fine by NZ$30 (about $17 US) for court costs.

Today, if you bring an apple into New Zealand and fail to declare it, you’ll be in a similar but even more expensive pickle. Per the nation's Ministry of Primary Industries, “when you arrive in New Zealand, you're required to declare all food, animal products, plants,” and some other items. That site explicitly says “there is no excuse” — accidental, intentional, it doesn’t matter — and all violations are now subject to a NZ$400 ($240 US) fine. Even if you’re an Oscar-winning actress.

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Today’s Bonus fact: In the biblical story of Adam and Eve, Eve is typically depicted as eating an apple — the forbidden fruit — from the Tree of Knowledge. (Here is a Google Images search if you want to see for yourself.) The passages in the Bible, though, never specify that the fruit is an apple. The association probably comes from a Latin play on words. The Straight Dope explains: “Early Christian scholars often took the forbidden fruit to be an apple, possibly because of the irresistible pun suggested by the Latin malum, which means both ‘apple’ and ‘evil.’ At least one early Latin translation of the bible uses ‘apple’ instead of ‘fruit.’” One of the most famous fruits in history wasn’t chosen for its symbolism at all — it just got lost in translation.

From the Archives: The Great Red Delicious Bailout of 2000: Looks can be deceiving.

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And thanks! — Dan