4 ms·

BTW, maybe it is some kind of psychological, but I really fell that the bananas I eat today are less tastier than the one I ate when I was a child.

by neves 12y ago

rustyconover 12y ago
I have the same thoughts about tomatoes. Tomatoes today have no flavor compared to what I remembered. It could be the flavor notes of childhood-backyard-summertime nostalgia, New Jersey terrior, and simply explained by the genetic modification such that tomatoes could be mechanically harvested weeks before they're ripe in the field. I'm a tomato luddite.
- TheBiv 12y ago
  Tomatoes, definitely! My brother works at a major shipping company and tomatoes are picked green, and then the trucks they are shipped in have an environment where they turn red. You can really taste the difference when you go to a farmers market and try a fresh tomato! Make sure the top of the tomato is orange so that you know it's fresh!
  - retroafroman 12y ago
    Bananas are often force rippened at the warehouse before sale, as well.
    - daviddumenil 12y ago
      The ethylene is used to retrigger their natural ripening process which has been stunted to allow them to be shipped abroad.
- caseydurfee 12y ago
  "Tomatoland", by Barry Estabrook, is an engaging (if depressing) look at how the tomato biz got that way.
apendleton 12y ago
How old are you? We might actually be eating a different banana cultivar now than you did when you were a child. The situation with the Cavendish now (that it's genetically uniform and so is being easily wiped out by a well-adapted pathogen) has happened before; up through the '50s the main banana available in US supermarkets was the Gros Michel, but they were mostly killed by fungus, which prompted the switch to the current Cavendish. Gros Michel bananas were apparently sweeter and had a different flavor, and I've heard anecdotally that part of why artificial banana flavoring doesn't taste much like how we find bananas to taste is that it was meant to imitate the flavor of the older, rather than the modern, banana. I'm not old enough to have had a Gros Michel, though, so I can't confirm that from personal experience.

BTW, maybe it is some kind of psychological, but I really fell that the bananas I eat today are less tastier than the one I ate when I was a child.

by neves 12y ago

BTW, maybe it is some kind of psychological, but I really fell that the bananas I eat today are less tastier than the one I ate when I was a child.

rustyconover 12y ago

I have the same thoughts about tomatoes. Tomatoes today have no flavor compared to what I remembered. It could be the flavor notes of childhood-backyard-summertime nostalgia, New Jersey terrior, and simply explained by the genetic modification such that tomatoes could be mechanically harvested weeks before they're ripe in the field. I'm a tomato luddite.

TheBiv 12y ago
Tomatoes, definitely! My brother works at a major shipping company and tomatoes are picked green, and then the trucks they are shipped in have an environment where they turn red. You can really taste the difference when you go to a farmers market and try a fresh tomato! Make sure the top of the tomato is orange so that you know it's fresh!
- retroafroman 12y ago
  Bananas are often force rippened at the warehouse before sale, as well.
  - daviddumenil 12y ago
    The ethylene is used to retrigger their natural ripening process which has been stunted to allow them to be shipped abroad.
caseydurfee 12y ago
"Tomatoland", by Barry Estabrook, is an engaging (if depressing) look at how the tomato biz got that way.

apendleton 12y ago

How old are you? We might actually be eating a different banana cultivar now than you did when you were a child. The situation with the Cavendish now (that it's genetically uniform and so is being easily wiped out by a well-adapted pathogen) has happened before; up through the '50s the main banana available in US supermarkets was the Gros Michel, but they were mostly killed by fungus, which prompted the switch to the current Cavendish. Gros Michel bananas were apparently sweeter and had a different flavor, and I've heard anecdotally that part of why artificial banana flavoring doesn't taste much like how we find bananas to taste is that it was meant to imitate the flavor of the older, rather than the modern, banana. I'm not old enough to have had a Gros Michel, though, so I can't confirm that from personal experience.