This Is What Fruits and Vegetables Looked Like Before Humans Intervened

[JBinMN]

Something fun to learn about, if you are one who likes to garden.

I do.
;)

https://curiosity.com/topics/this-is-what-fruits-and-vegetables-looked-like-before-humans-intervened-curiosity/

Enjoy!
:)

[Alstep]

Interesting how that all came about. Lots of other fascinating articles further down.

[RED BEAR]

Thanks jb that was interesting.

[country gent]

Cambells Soups spent years creating a Variety of tomato that produced larger amounts of juice and firm enough to be hauled in a semi trailer and not "flats". This produced more juice and pulp. It also allowed the trucks to be unloaded with high volume low pressure water then floated to the machines with out damage to the tomato.

[corbinace]

I tried to read it but so many popups kept locking up the screen I had to give up.

[owejia]

Saw a picture of a new to me peach, called a saucer peach yesterday. Nothing better than walking by my peach trees and picking a vine ripe fresh peach and biting into it. The local squirrel population also enjoys them.

[JBinMN]

Thanks to the folks who replied.
:drinks:

:)

Some will find the article interesting & some won't.
:)

No worries.

Like I said. Enjoy!
:)

[bmortell]

I always wondered how farming just kinda shows up at a point in history like they invented it. guess they had to invent the crops before they could invent farming

[Winger Ed.]

I always wondered how farming just kinda shows up at a point in history like they invented it. guess they had to invent the crops before they could invent farming

Farming developed when a few people found places that could sustain them without wandering & scavenging all the time.
They evolved from hunting/gathering to staying in one place and aggressively cultivating the wild plants they could eat.

[GhostHawk]

My grandfather was in the Border Patrol based out of El Paso Texas.

There was nothing he loved more than a weekend spent hunting arrowheads and indian artifacts. Pots, baskets, etc.

One weekend him and a friend found a "dry cave" out in the desert, Could have been Texas or across the border in Mexico.

I'll never forget the cobs of corn he had, still with kernals attached.
The longest was less than 3 inches long, about the size of my thumb. But you could tell it was corn. Multi colored, small kernaled indian corn, but corn. He planted a few kernals, even with water and plenty of sun non got over 3 feet tall.

Selective breeding works, and has worked for thousands of years. Probably more like 10's of thousands.

Wheat and barley I know were both grasses originally with very small seed heads and kernals. But a mornings picking would get you enough for a bowl of porridge. Biggest and best kernals got saved, planted in the most fertile well watered soil and yields went up.

Good post OP! Lots to think about there.

[Thundarstick]

My last of the season watermelons look just like the ones in that painting, I also grew a variety named sorbet swirl last year that looked like them as well.

[Bookworm]

Saw a picture of a new to me peach, called a saucer peach yesterday. Nothing better than walking by my peach trees and picking a vine ripe fresh peach and biting into it. The local squirrel population also enjoys them.

Years ago, a starved dog took up residence in an old end-table on my front porch. It turned out to be a Rat Terrier, and one of the smartest dogs I have ever been around. It was assuredly the terror of all the small (and some large) mammals in the area.
When that dog died, I stopped getting a peach crop from my (wild) trees. I didn't realize it, but that dog was protecting the orchard from the ravages of squirrels and deer - likely possums and coons too.

Ya don't know what ya got, 'til it's gone.

[JSnover]

Farming developed when a few people found places that could sustain them without wandering & scavenging all the time.
They evolved from hunting/gathering to staying in one place and aggressively cultivating the wild plants they could eat.

Indeed! Societies would never have evolved without it. Once you're able to produce sustainable crops and surplus food your whole world changes.

[2wheelDuke]

It's amazing what people have done to things over time.

This also really amuses me when food is sold as "non-GMO." We don't eat a single crop that hasn't been tinkered with over the millenia.

[xs11jack]

Is this what the real paleo diet would look like?
Ole Jack

[Sig556r]

I tried to read it but so many popups kept locking up the screen I had to give up.

Same here...

[JBinMN]

For those of you who do not have a "pop up blocker" installed on your browser, here is a way to read the article without the pop ups...

Copy the link to the article below from the OP:

https://curiosity.com/topics/this-is-what-fruits-and-vegetables-looked-like-before-humans-intervened-curiosity/

Then go to this website:

https://outline.com/

Paste the upper link into the box provided at the 2nd link.

Hit the button ( left click) on the button below where ya pasted the link & wait a bit.

Then read the article.
;)

[JSnover]

For a thorough, well-written examination of the link between agriculture and the rise of human civilization, try "Guns, Germs, and Steel, The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared Diamond.

[Hossfly]

Another good read [The alchemy of air] how we get fertilizer with out animals. I hate squirrels. Thanks for that link good info.

[Froogal]

Just for fun, we grew some strawberry popcorn. Very interesting to watch it grow. VERY primitive. Some stalks grew ears up on top, where the tassel usually grows, and some of the ears, growing where they should, also grew tassels.

[richbug]

It's amazing what people have done to things over time.

This also really amuses me when food is sold as "non-GMO." We don't eat a single crop that hasn't been tinkered with over the millenia.

GMO has nothing to do with "tinkering", and everything to do with tinkering in a lab, "gene splicing" specifically.

Conventional hybrid crops are non-GMO.

[Froogal]

GMO has nothing to do with "tinkering", and everything to do with tinkering in a lab, "gene splicing" specifically.

Conventional hybrid crops are non-GMO.

"Tinkering" is still necessary in order to develop those modern hybrids. Sometimes mother nature does it unaided by humans.