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The sugar content in the fruits we eat today is the result of selective breeding, not GMO. Everything is bred to look delicious and have a high sugar content. O

The sugar content in the fruits we eat today is the result of selective breeding, not GMO. Everything is bred to look delicious and have a high sugar content. Other qualities (such as taste) are sadly secondary. The Golden Delicious apple might be the best example.

maxerickson 10y ago
Apples are an interesting case though, since they don't breed true at all. What happens is that lots of trees are allowed to grow from promising parent stock and then occasionally a new marketable apple is discovered. That tree is then cloned by grafting cuttings to established roots. Fuji and Gala are quite sweet, but they also stay quite crisp a long time compared to older varieties, so it isn't just sugar content. Same with Granny Smith, which are popular because they are relatively tart (while still being fairly sweet for apples).
EGreg 10y ago
Okay, but in a sense it is also GMO correct? In fact it is exactly this sense that is used when people say "nearly everything is GMO these days". https://www.cagw.org/media/wastewatcher/almost-everything-genetically-modified https://www.cagw.org/media/wastewatcher/almost-everything-ge...
- lorenzhs 10y ago
  This is nothing new. Nearly all of the food we eat didn't exist in that form a few thousand years ago. "Selective breeding of both plants and animals has been practiced since early prehistory; key species such as wheat, rice, and dogs have been significantly different from their wild ancestors for millennia, and maize, which required especially large changes from teosinte, its wild form, was selectively bred in Mesoamerica." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_breeding#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_breeding#History GMO are a modern, accelerated way to achieve similar goals (or ones that were previously unattainable, such as pesticide resistance). The criticism is that adding genes from other plants may have unforeseeable, potentially undesirable side effects.

maxerickson 10y ago

Apples are an interesting case though, since they don't breed true at all. What happens is that lots of trees are allowed to grow from promising parent stock and then occasionally a new marketable apple is discovered. That tree is then cloned by grafting cuttings to established roots. Fuji and Gala are quite sweet, but they also stay quite crisp a long time compared to older varieties, so it isn't just sugar content. Same with Granny Smith, which are popular because they are relatively tart (while still being fairly sweet for apples).

EGreg 10y ago

Okay, but in a sense it is also GMO correct? In fact it is exactly this sense that is used when people say "nearly everything is GMO these days". https://www.cagw.org/media/wastewatcher/almost-everything-genetically-modified https://www.cagw.org/media/wastewatcher/almost-everything-ge...

lorenzhs 10y ago
This is nothing new. Nearly all of the food we eat didn't exist in that form a few thousand years ago. "Selective breeding of both plants and animals has been practiced since early prehistory; key species such as wheat, rice, and dogs have been significantly different from their wild ancestors for millennia, and maize, which required especially large changes from teosinte, its wild form, was selectively bred in Mesoamerica." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_breeding#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_breeding#History GMO are a modern, accelerated way to achieve similar goals (or ones that were previously unattainable, such as pesticide resistance). The criticism is that adding genes from other plants may have unforeseeable, potentially undesirable side effects.