Most fruits and vegetables that we know and eat all the time now used to be different. Before they were genetically modified to make them a product to consume almost everyday, they used to look very different. Why have these fruits and vegetables change so much over time? It comes up not because of natural selection, but because of decisions made by farmers over time.
In order to have some of these fruits or veggies available to a larger amount of people, they changed by selecting which crops were going to be reproduced and the selection was made by farmers and enterprises in order to have faster, better crops. But did you know this significantly changed how these fruits and vegetebles look over time?
Watermelon
This paint shows how watermelons used to look like hundreds of years ago, before being modified. Look at the swirls and the way they were built - there was too much free space between the watermelon seeds.
Modified watermelon
Watermelon were genetically modified, so it could have a fleshy and red interior and in this way we could have this fruit that we love so much. In some contries like China they modified the watermelon and they have square watermelons.
Wild carrot
These carrots, a previous version of the orange ones we know now were grown in Persia. These carrots were purple and also had a white color, after a time they became yellow.
Modified carrot
Farmers decided that these needed to be modified and these carrots turned into a large, tasty orange roots.
Wild eggplant
Eggplants have come in different shapes and colors, such as white, azure, yellow or the actual purple we already know. Primitive versions used to have spines.
Modified eggplant
When it got modified it changed a lot. The eggplant got a larger and of a familiar purple color. We can find eggplants at the supermarket.
Wild banana
The early versions of banana trees come from a distant tree people may have heard of, Musa acuminata, a plant with puny pods that could bred to produce a seedless fruit. This fruit was known at least 6,000 years ago in Papua New Guinea.
Modified banana
Compared to the wild banana, the modern banana has smaller seeds, a better taste and also has more nutrients.
Wild corn
The original corn, showed in this image was domesticated for the first time in 7,000 BC and it was dry like a raw potato.
Modified corn
The modified corn is larger than the old one and is easier to peel and let it grow. The changes ocurred since 15th century, when European settlers started to cultivate the crop.
Wild Peach
As we can see, peaches usted to be smaller and looked more like a cherry. The first peach to be domesticated was around 4,000 BC by the Chinese.
Modified Peach
Thousand of years after being selectively breeding them, peaches were domesticated and now are a hefty 64 times bigger.
Wild tomato
It is really hard to imagining tomatoes having another shape. Ancient tomatoes were smaller and darker, and looked more like a berry than an actual tomato.
Modified tomato
Europeans were afraid of eating tomatoes for many years because it looked like a poisonous plant.
Wild cabbage
Cabbage seems to be relative of broccoli and kale, and it has evolved from an ancient species of wild mustard plant.
Modified cabbage
This plant had mutation that made it a little longer and had curly leaves.
Wild beet
If we saw this image before knowing this was a beet, we would have thought it was another kind of vegetable.
Modified beet
Beets are really famous because of their pinkish purple color. It is really hard imagining that it was another color before being their current color.
Wild strawberry
It seems that wild strawberries used to look like berries but it had change through time and also the flavor changed a lot. Now they are very are sweet and a fan favorite of most people around the world.
Modified strawberry
This red and delicious fruit can be used in many desserts and they had changed through time because of human modifications over time.
