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Basically all fruits and vegetables taste much worse (or, simply, much less) than they used to. Is this some kind of weird market failure, or is it just the onl

Basically all fruits and vegetables taste much worse (or, simply, much less) than they used to. Is this some kind of weird market failure, or is it just the only way to produce this stuff at the scale required nowadays?

etangent 6y ago
It's a failure of "eugenics": aggressive artificial selection amplifies trade-offs, and by the time the market picks up on the fact that trade-offs exit (in the case of Red Delicious, mostly having to do with taste of the fruit), consumer tastes shift, and the formerly selected-for traits become very unpopular.
Broken_Hippo 6y ago
Yes... and no. I mean, fruits and veggies were very, very seasonal, save the things we could preserve in different ways. Eggs were seasonal as well. Now with shipping and greenhouses, more of us can have some of the stuff all year. But only if it ships well enough. For a lot of things, we've decided that having the thing is better than not. So we get red delicious even where apples don't grow, and maybe you can buy local ones in autumn - you know, the ones that don't ship well. Some fruits you only get frozen or in jams simply because they won't make it to you fresh. And so on. To make things more complicated, things like apples are strange: An eating apple is a rarity from seed. It might also be that your taste buds were more sensitive when younger: This is a known thing. It lets you eat a wider variety of foods now, as an adult, but can have the effect of not liking other things.
0xbadcafebee 6y ago
That's kind of what this article is about..... but to answer your question: it's a market "success", and it's taste. People do not buy fruit & veg because it tastes very good, they buy it because it exists in a supermarket and looks pretty. Flavor is not a major component in choice. If you have 3 apples, and all 3 taste bland, people will still buy the "best" of the 3 bland apples rather than no apple at all. Fruit/veg found at a supermarket are also bred for industrial purpose. They are selected to store well, grow quickly, produce in large numbers, resist disease/drought, and be visually pleasing. Flavor is a minor consideration, because 99.99999% of people will not go out of their way to find a better tasting version of the same veg. If you want tastier fruit/veg, go out of your way to find a local varietal, or a local grower of more varieties. There are thousands of small farms all over the country that grow a wide variety of fruit & veg. Also, tastes change. The fruit/veg that you prefer may have gone out of fashion, so the new stuff doesn't taste as good to you.

etangent 6y ago

It's a failure of "eugenics": aggressive artificial selection amplifies trade-offs, and by the time the market picks up on the fact that trade-offs exit (in the case of Red Delicious, mostly having to do with taste of the fruit), consumer tastes shift, and the formerly selected-for traits become very unpopular.

Broken_Hippo 6y ago

Yes... and no. I mean, fruits and veggies were very, very seasonal, save the things we could preserve in different ways. Eggs were seasonal as well. Now with shipping and greenhouses, more of us can have some of the stuff all year. But only if it ships well enough. For a lot of things, we've decided that having the thing is better than not. So we get red delicious even where apples don't grow, and maybe you can buy local ones in autumn - you know, the ones that don't ship well. Some fruits you only get frozen or in jams simply because they won't make it to you fresh. And so on. To make things more complicated, things like apples are strange: An eating apple is a rarity from seed. It might also be that your taste buds were more sensitive when younger: This is a known thing. It lets you eat a wider variety of foods now, as an adult, but can have the effect of not liking other things.

0xbadcafebee 6y ago

That's kind of what this article is about..... but to answer your question: it's a market "success", and it's taste. People do not buy fruit & veg because it tastes very good, they buy it because it exists in a supermarket and looks pretty. Flavor is not a major component in choice. If you have 3 apples, and all 3 taste bland, people will still buy the "best" of the 3 bland apples rather than no apple at all. Fruit/veg found at a supermarket are also bred for industrial purpose. They are selected to store well, grow quickly, produce in large numbers, resist disease/drought, and be visually pleasing. Flavor is a minor consideration, because 99.99999% of people will not go out of their way to find a better tasting version of the same veg. If you want tastier fruit/veg, go out of your way to find a local varietal, or a local grower of more varieties. There are thousands of small farms all over the country that grow a wide variety of fruit & veg. Also, tastes change. The fruit/veg that you prefer may have gone out of fashion, so the new stuff doesn't taste as good to you.