Infographic: 5 popular foods genetically modified by humans–before GMOs

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A wild relative of the banana. Photo by Warut Roonguthai

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to eat a completely “natural” diet? Well, for starters, you wouldn’t be able to eat any of the crops developed through conventional breeding methods. That means virtually every fruit and vegetable in your local supermarket, because they have been genetically modified over centuries and millennia by humans selectively breeding for traits such as taste, yield, resistance to pests, durability, duration of life cycle, and more. Over time, and lots of trial and error, this meticulous process has transformed wild plants into the foods we now know as “watermelon,” “bananas,” “corn,” and so on. But what did these common fruits and vegetables look like in their wild, “natural” state? Check out the helpful infographic below, which is based on a 2014 Genetic Literacy Project graphic. [Modern genetic engineering can do this work much more quickly, and more precisely.

The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post: What 5 popular fruits and veggies looked like before — and after — we domesticated them

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