this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2023
1469 points (95.5% liked)
Comic Strips
12729 readers
2171 users here now
Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.
The rules are simple:
- The post can be a single image, an image gallery, or a link to a specific comic hosted on another site (the author's website, for instance).
- The comic must be a complete story.
- If it is an external link, it must be to a specific story, not to the root of the site.
- You may post comics from others or your own.
- If you are posting a comic of your own, a maximum of one per week is allowed (I know, your comics are great, but this rule helps avoid spam).
- The comic can be in any language, but if it's not in English, OP must include an English translation in the post's 'body' field (note: you don't need to select a specific language when posting a comic).
- Politeness.
- Adult content is not allowed. This community aims to be fun for people of all ages.
Web of links
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world: "I use Arch btw"
- !memes@lemmy.world: memes (you don't say!)
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
iirc the modern banana is actually a less flavorful variety than centuries past, but not for selective breeding reasons. The more popular variety, the Gros Michel, was susceptible to a certain fungus that wiped it out by the 60s. Those apparently tasted closer to the artificial banana flavoring that is still used today and in fact are what that flavoring was based on (albeit probably quite a bit more sugary and concentrated since it's still a candy flavoring).
And then you have other produce like apples and tomatoes being bred for size and yield, since that will both net more profit and feed more people. This often necessarily means that the produce will lose flavor in the process, as well as nutritional value by weight since the size/yield increase is mostly just the crop taking up more water. (I think the genetic modification you mentioned is in some part meant to correct that inverse relationship between yield and nutritional density, but I'd have to read up more on the subject.)
So I think you can just as much argue that it's not our tastebuds being ruined so much as produce itself being considerably less appealing to them.
You can buy Gros Michel bananas still you just have to put in some effort. If you are in the USA and have the cash the Miami Fruit Co ships them when they grow them. I haven't checked but I believe they are in banana season.
Whoa, looks like a really cool company in general! Thanks for the tip!
The gros Michel is also not a natural banana. Those were also all clones of each other. Natural bananas have big ass seeds throughout them.