People think of processed foods as a relatively new thing. But in truth, humans have been altering food for thousands of years.

Have you ever considered how much of the food you eat is the result of human tampering?

Even lots of the fruit and vegetables that fill the shelves of grocery stores all around the world originally looked a lot different. Yes, thanks to human efforts, the wild versions of many fruits and vegetables seem like distant cousins of the ones we consume every day.

Here are 10 strange ways that fruits and vegetables have changed over the years, thanks to human intervention:

1. Wild cucumbers are toxic

If you were to see a spiky oval vegetable growing in the wild, you probably would hesitate to eat it, and rightly so. While they’re technically cucumbers, they’re also very toxic.

2. Wild eggplants look like tomatoes

You could easily mistake a wild eggplant for a grape tomato. They’re round, one centimeter in diameter and look yellow, green and red. They’re also very bitter.

3. Orange carrots used to be a rarity

You may be aware of purple and white carrots. They show up now and then in some grocery stores. But orange carrots, aka, the most common carrots today, used to be unheard of. Why are orange carrots the default carrot of today? Some believe that the Dutch cultivated them to celebrate their royal family, The House of Orange.

4. Corn used to have barely any kernels

Corn originally had a sparse amount of kernels. And even getting to these kernels was difficult. as the casing was much harder.

5. Wild bananas have hard seeds

You can’t just bite down on the innards of a wild banana. That’s because it’ll be filled with hard stone-like seeds.

6. Wild apples are tiny

How’d you like them apples? Probably not very much if they’re wild apples. They’re tiny and sour to the human palette.

7. Avocados used to be mostly pit

Millennials everywhere would despair if they had to rely on wild avocados. That’s because the delicious edible mush only makes up a thin layer of a wild avocado, and the pit is huge. A wild avocado is also more circular than ovular.

8. Wild Peaches are as tiny as cherries

Wild peaches are more acidic and tart, although they do still taste good. But they’re much smaller than peaches in the store, being only around one inch in diameter.

9. Wild watermelons used to be bitter. (Really old ones had green flesh)

The flesh of ancestral watermelons was hard, pale and green. They also tasted very bitter. Some believe that the only reason why the Egyptians started cultivating them was that they were a good source of fresh water during the dry season.

10. Wild marshmallows exist

When you eat a marshmallow, you don’t think that it’s a fruit or a vegetable, and you’re right. But there is a plant called a marshmallow, and the sweet sap that it produces was once used in the creation of candies.

So now you know that basically all the fruits and vegetables (and some candies) that you eat are lies. You’re welcome.

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Source: Bright Side