The "past life" of common fruits and vegetables

When you eat a piece of watermelon or a piece of corn

Think about it.

These fruits and vegetables that we are used to seeing on weekdays

It didn't have to be like this before.

Here are some things that we are very familiar with.

But food that has changed beyond recognition.

What is this bearded plant?

Is it a kind of medicine?

actually,

These are wild carrots!

The earliest carrots were grown in Persia and Asia minor in the tenth century.

They were purple or white.

The root is small and forked.

But then...

Their purple pigment slowly faded and turned yellow.

People treat those with small roots

Pungent, two-year-old carrots have been improved

Turned them into the thicker and brighter colors they are now.

Crops that taste "crunchy"

What is this round guy?

It looks like grapefruit.

It's the grandparent of eggplant. Oh, wild eggplant is prickly.

Today's eggplant is attached to its flowers.

Wild eggplant comes in a variety of colors, including white, blue, purple and yellow

Some are even round.

It's not what oval eggplant looks like today.

After seed selection and cultivation

The thorns on the eggplant stem no longer exist.

It has become a bigger volume that we can buy in the vegetable market today.

Oval purple vegetables

This green plant is sure to surprise you.

Because it's wild corn.

Does it bear no resemblance to modern corn?

North American sweet corn is perhaps the most typical example of seed selection and cultivation.

They are cultivated from a barely edible ruminant plant.

Humans first began to cultivate corn in 7000 BC.

The corn was dry at that time.

It looks like an untreated potato.

Today's corn is more than 1000 times larger than it was more than 9000 years ago.

Easier to peel and easier to plant.

The sugar content of modern corn has reached 6.6%.

The sugar content of wild corn is only 1.9%

Half of these changes have occurred since European colonists began to cultivate corn in the 15th century.

This is a 17th century Italian painter.

Giovanni Stanki (Giovanni Stanchi)

A painting of

The plants in the lower right corner should be easier to identify ~ yes.

It's a wild watermelon.

This is a painting from the 17th century

It shows the appearance of the seeds inside the watermelon at that time.

Compared with wild watermelon, modern watermelon

More similar in appearance

There is plump and juicy red flesh on the inside.

And in fact,

The pulp of a watermelon is its placenta.

And some watermelons are seedless.

What is this fruit full of holes?

It's actually a wild banana.

The earliest bananas cultivated by human beings have a history of at least 7000 years.

Or earlier.

Can be traced back to 10,000 years ago

The ancestors of these bananas were first planted in what is now Babu.

There are also in Southeast Asia

Today's bananas are made from two varieties

Small fruit wild banana and wild banana evolved.

These two kinds of bananas have large seeds

And it's hard, just like in the picture.

Hybrid technology has cultivated today's delicious bananas.

Their shape is more convenient for people to take, and the skin can be peeled off directly.

It tastes soft and waxy and sweet

Peaches used to be small fruits like cherries today.

There is little flesh.

In about 4000 BC

The ancient Chinese were the first to plant peaches.

The peaches at that time smelled of dirt.

It's a little salty, and it tastes like lentils.

After thousands of years of seed selection and cultivation

Today's peaches are 64 times larger than their original form.

The content of fruit juice is 27% more.

Sweetness increased by 4%.

Source: ecological China Network operator: Tang Jun MX002