How 8 Fruits and Vegetables Looked Like Before Humans Decided to Change Them

It's possibly the plastic surgery of the food world, and it's been happening longer than we've been alive. See, before genetically modified foods made their way into our kitchens; thousands of years ago, food grew, 100% organically - free from the interference of human hands. Take a look at how 8 of our favorite fruits and vegetables looked before humans took the wild out of them.

Selective breeding, also known as artificial selection, is the age-old process of humans discovering that not all plants and animals are created equal and doing something about it. With fruits and vegetables, humans began domesticating or cultivating them to enhance their size, taste, color or nutritional value, so as to get greater value from them.

Here's what our food looked like before and after this process.

Corn

When genetic modification began 10 000 years ago on the Teosinte, a wild grass believed to be corn's wild ancestor, corn began to transform. It went from a weedy grass with small kernels that could dispel it's seed, to be a genetically modified staple food that is bigger and easier to peel.

Bananas

Banana's used to be more seed than banana. Around 650 CE - over 1000 years ago - it's most common wild ancestor, which scientists believe to be the Musa acuminata, was domesticated and over the years, bananas lost their seeds and became fatter and sweeter.

Watermelon

Imagine a watermelon that wasn't sweet. Well in 2000 BCE (more than 4 thousand years ago) this was the case. The watermelons possible wild ancestor is believed to be Kordofan melons, and they originated as little, bitter fruits that were very hard, somewhere in Southern or Western Africa. They were bred by humans planting seeds of larger and tastier fruits, producing the sweet, deep red watermelon we love today.

Carrots

Carrots weren't always mouth watering in appearance - they were once white and purple. Approximately 1000 years ago, the Daucus Carota - the wild carrot - was domesticated and over the years the deep orange color was cemented onto our modern carrot. It's still possible to find yellow and white carrots. Today's carrots also have deeper roots and a sweeter flavor.

Apples

There was a time when human beings couldn't eat an apple off a tree. Around 4000 years ago the apple's wild ancestor, the Malus sieversii was bred to be tastier and sweeter because they used to be too sour to eat. Over the centuries, they've also developed a better texture and a brighter color.

Cauliflower

The wild ancestor of cauliflower is the wild cabbage or Brassica oleracea, and it was bred around 400 BCE (more than 2000 years ago). It had large leaves and flowering stems that carried individual flowers.

Peaches

Before domestication, in the period of 6000 BCE (approximately 8000 years ago), peaches were much smaller with a thinner, tougher flesh. They came from the Prunus persica, Rosaceae family, and they resembled a cherry, tasted more like a lentil and the pit took up more space in the fruit. Now, after thousands of years of artificial selection, our peaches are larger, juicier and sweeter. Modern peaches also contain more nutrients.

Cucumber

The wild cucumber is believed to have been cultivated about 11,000 years ago. Its wild ancestor, the Cucumis hardwickii, looks vastly different to the cucumber we know - they are smaller and have a rounder shape with spines. Selective breeding transformed it into the long and sweet cucumber we can now toss into a salad.

Our fruits and vegetables have been through a lot. Check out how you can keep them around for longer here.