Apple

Apples are food objects found in Alpha mode. There are two types of Apples: Golden Apples and Red Apples.

Red Apples
Red apples are only found in Dungeons, and can be used to make Golden Apples.

Golden Apples
Golden Apples are apples coated with gold. Eating one fully restores your health. They can be crafted from a Red Apple and 8 Gold blocks surrounding it.

They can also be found in dungeons on rare occasions.

Notch has included code in the SMP server application that will check whether a player joining the server has the username "Notch", and if so, will grant them a Golden Apple in their inventory.

Advantages

 * Golden apples restore all your health, so in case you need a lot of it eating the apple is the quickest way.

Disadvantages

 * Apples are somewhat rare, and as it only heals 2, it is not worth looking for.
 * Even though golden apples restore all your health, it is a waste of time and resources, since making one requires 72 gold ingots.