Change is totally normal but it's always good to know how
and why a transformation occurred i don't know
whatever the case may be we're all certainly eating new versions of our
favorite fruits and vegetables that have changed over time
so let's bite into the top 10 foods that originally looked
totally different the carrot where do you get all your money i
invented the carrot peeling ah yes almost everyone can recall being
told to eat this crunchy vegetable as a child
you know eat your green vegetables that's what my mom
is always saying because they would apparently improve our eyesight
carrots currently have an orange color generally they taste all right when
served as a side or with a dip and they're pretty consistent in every
aspect no matter where you are in the world
but back in the day around the 10th century to be more precise
there was an earlier form of carrot it was originally purple or white
and came in the form of a thinned forked root alongside that
it's said to have first appeared in what is now modern day iran and turkey
as opposed to now where you can find them widespread throughout the world
ultimately this change was likely for good as we got something that looks less
like a tooth and is probably a little more nutritious
once farmers domesticated it what this means is that there's a chance
the carrot was selectively bred by replanting larger versions of it
although this is not fully understood yet
and in case you thought this change to the humble carrot was a one-shot deal
don't worry times are still a-changing kids now might also be consuming a
different kind of carrot due to the fact that the modern world has
genetically modified foods in fact one gmo carrot was actually tested and
resulted in increased calcium intake for some individuals
maybe next time they'll add something that gives us cool night vision
abilities the beloved banana the banana is a very
interesting fruit you know what to touch banana as there have been several
variations of it throughout time it's said to have been first cultivated
around seven to ten thousand years ago it came from the area currently known as
papua new guinea and was also grown in southeast asia
the original was so drastically different that if you put it and the
modern version side by side one might even confuse them for
completely unrelated fruits this is due to the fact that the
originals came from two types the musa acuminata and musa balbisiana
both of those types supposedly had hard and large seeds
when you compare that to what we now all consume aka the cavendish
you'll find that the modern version not only has much smaller seeds
but is also better tasting and has more nutrients
to add an extra advantage it appears to be even more accessible due to being
easier to peel this switch from the original musa
cuminato banana to the specific cultivar we used today
wasn't an overnight deal the bananas that are now consumed are said to not
even be the same as those that your grandparents were eating
at that time the banana type was called grow michelle but needed to be swapped
out for a type of banana that was genetically resistant to panama disease
a fungus affecting the root of the plant however it's been reported that even the
cavendish cultivar we eat today is not completely resistant to the
devastating panama disease so who knows what the future holds for
bananas the peach to tell me that this thing is
a peach it's not our peach the peach used to be
very similar to cherries as far as size is concerned
let it we're not even in the same species but in terms of taste that's
where the similarities seem to stop since peaches were originally slightly
salty and had an earthy taste to them more similar in taste to a lentil than
what we'd associate with a peach today the fruit was originally thought to be
domesticated by the ancient chinese around 2000 bce before common era
but more updated research suggests they go as far back as 6000 bce
now keep in mind that over the long period of domestication we've had the
time to kind of perfect what we wanted in this fruit
peaches are currently 64 times larger than their ancestors
four percent sweeter and apparently 27 juicier so not only is there more peach
to love it's more delicious and as an added
bonus way more nutritious too the peach didn't get to this size and
juice ratio all on its own this is another instance of farmer
selectively breeding certain types of the peach to the specific needs and
wants of the farmer and overall population one thing is for
sure those farmers knew what they were doing
watermelon
watermelon has a long and somewhat interesting history
unlike some other fruits out there the family tree of the watermelon is not as
well known i could have brought my very serious
girlfriend what who have you guys not met margaret
and we're still not entirely sure what the original fruit looked like
but there is a bit of evidence that gives us all an idea of how it's changed
you see there's a painting that was done by giovanni stanchi
somewhere between 1645 and 1672 it shows the melon's flash as being
rather pink patterned in a swirl inside of six
triangular segments almost like slices of a pie there also
appeared to be an abundance of seeds in the painted fruit
currently you've got many options with this fruit you can buy them seedless or
in the form of a square if you're into that sort of a thing
but other than the aesthetic changes that we've purposely done to the fruit
in the modern ages not too much seems to have changed the
most notable difference would be the red interior
so the simple conclusion about this fruit is the idea of the watermelon not
being altered as much as the other fruits
it seems like the original natural watermelon was already so
enjoyable farmers didn't mess with it too much don't fix what isn't broken i
guess apples apple like the fruit
the fruit of creation crabapple also known as wild apple
comes from the genus malus this is a category of about 30 to 55 species of
small deciduous apple trees or shrubs in the family rosacea
do you like apples the apple used to actually be known as the asian wild
apple or malice seversai and was native to the
mountains of kazakhstan kyrgyzstan tajikistan uzbekistan and
china as for how it tasted and looked these
original apples were sour and quite small
and not as crisp as our current apples either an apple a day keeps the doctor
away these original apples don't seem
appealing enough to want to test that theory
but a changed apple could do the job the modern version is tastier than its
parent since it's sweet it's also a fair bit larger but really
otherwise they are fairly similar and extremely closely related
the apple is one of our foods that hasn't changed all that much due to the
environments that it was raised in humans simply selected the most pleasing
versions and bred those to develop the taste into the refined
sweet crunch we currently enjoy tomatoes a tomato doesn't have logic a tomato
can't move that's what i said like many ancestral fruits older
versions of the tomato were tiny juicy temptress
big red they had a color of yellow or green
not the luscious red we have today tomatoes seem to have been used in
cooking by the aztecs and were later adopted by the europeans in countries
such as spain and italy currently the tomato is the poster child
for many varieties of food you can see them in everything from
ketchup bottles to commercials about hamburgers
they've got a welcoming plump red color which nicely complements the rather
large versions of tomatoes we've got one interesting thing about this fruit
is that it had a bad nickname at one point in the late 1700s in europe
the tomato was known as the poison apple due to the thought of aristocrats dying
after eating them at the time they were using pewter
plates but the high acidity of the tomato
activated the lead in the plates leaching it out in short tomatoes were
causing lead poisoning in people but they didn't know it at the time
we've certainly moved on from thinking that this item is the equivalent of an
assassin roaming the dark alleys of the world
on top of that we're now enjoying tomatoes more than ever
corn smelling me some cornbread it's from my muses not much is known
about corn and its relatives surprise get that corn out of my face
but it was eventually traced back to be related to a mexican plant known
as teosinte the ancestral corn had small skinny ears and really only gave a few
dozen kernels inside of a hard casing now part of the reason corn has become
so popular is due to the changes that have occurred over time
some of these include ensuring that the modern version is larger
tastier and produces significantly more kernels than its forebearer
we've even got different colored corn now although it's safe to assume that
one of the most well-known versions is the yellow cob
in this case humans once again performed selective breeding in mesoamerica by
selecting plants whose seeds were larger and had kernels that could be easily
ground up alongside that it said that the two variants split apart around 9
000 years ago but still managed to have similar dna
in fact corn is so popular nowadays that you can find evidence of it in your hair
the old adage is true you are what you eat after all
our body breaks down our food to use the proteins and fats in other ways
when you look at the carbon utilized in a strand of hair scientists can
determine a rough percentage of how much of that carbon was derived from corn
this is a widely used food option throughout the world but due to the
everyday use of high fructose corn syrup americans in particular are walking corn
advertisements the avocado would you pick it and yes
it's avocado no you can't do that no no no
the avocado has gone through some much needed changes molly that was a lot of
guacamole which now allows us to smoothly spread
it onto our toast instead of feeling like you're choking to death like with
every bite of peanut butter the original avocado was apparently
small and is said to have been able to easily fit into your palm
they were so small the diameter was only around three inches
on top of that the pit to fruit ratio was basically ridiculous
since the pit took up almost the entire avocado as if that wasn't enough to turn
most people away from this version the fruit part wasn't that good in fact
it's said to have had a rougher and grittier taste to it
after some desperate alterations starting way back in 500 bce
the avocado now has a creamy taste and is obviously significantly larger
in short it's a far better bang for your buck one thing that hasn't changed is
the color it seems to be just the same as it was
in the past at least now you don't need to buy 10 of these things to get the
same amount as you now do with one they're expensive enough as it is as for
how we got this improved version well it isn't a real mystery we did what
humans appear to have done so often throughout history selectively
breed until we got what we wanted eggplant for you a shiny eggplant
eggplant is very unique when you think about it i'm almost a little concerned
that you might be over qualified for the position everything
from the name to the shape and the color but the
history is also just as captivating this is one type of food that is
actually really different from its traditional format
the wild variation of it was typically round but in general they came in
different shapes as for the color it usually came in
white hmm white and round yeah that's why it was
called an eggplant although variations of it also came in
blue and yellow it's believed to have been first
domesticated in china thailand and india but the original version wasn't really
eaten as it was mostly used for medicinal reasons
after a ton of alteration across the span of the foods family tree
we've now got the modern eggplant it's large and has a distinct shape
it's purple in color and no longer has spines along the stem
most of all it's now deliciously edible this means that people can enjoy it for
all its glory instead of just the medicinal benefits
this is likely one of the more obvious foods that were selectively bred as the
current version is different in almost all aspects
it shows some of the positive aspects of selective breeding in foods even with
that being a debated topic strawberries strawberries are pretty
awesome and they've got some history to back
that up and it looks like a perfectly normal
fresh delicious strawberry for once something wasn't bred to be
better the original was supposedly sweeter and is even referred to as the
superior version of the fruit however the original has one major flaw
which many people dislike it was a lot smaller now the modern
version is red and large and healthy but unfortunately
that's the reason why it's lost some of its flavor over the years
the taste is the same sitting somewhere between sweet and sour
but the intensity of the flavor is much diminished unlike these other foods the
strawberry didn't change due to a simple case of selective breeding the story is
actually far more complicated all this really
only began after an 18th century spy of all people decided
to bring some strawberry plants he found in chile back to france
after decades of insufficient attempts to cross breed the plants with the local
version of the strawberry the world finally started to come upon a
solution it was through both deliberate and accidental crossbreeding between
three different types of strawberry one from the old world and two from the
new world that finally resulted in the classic
modern strawberry we think of today spend a little more time with us by
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