It's not really that simple these days. A lot of veg and fruit are actually grown to ease packaging and delivery. Uniform shape and size are preferred by retailers because they are easier to fit in packaging and shelve. If you just take Celery as an example - why trim it to death and just leave the white stems ? The green gives it the flavour IMO but it doesn't fit in the packaging so off with it's head. Seedless grapes, pomegranates - what's the problems with the seeds ? They will pass thru your system without any detrimental effect much the same as Cucumber and Tomato seeds. You can chose to Spit the seeds out immediately or just wait a while and S*it them. The sale of tomatoes in SM's is also a good example - if it is red and round and says Tomato on the packet/shelf, that's what many people accept as a Tomato. The fact it often has no flavour at all doesn't resonate simply because the purchaser hasn't had the opportunity to taste a decent tomato and therefore accepts this as the norm. I'm not saying that there haven't been improvements over the years of selective breeding and people's tastes are obviously different but there is a limit.
Many of the seed varieties sold now are hybrids and don't come true from seed, therefore you can't collect your own seed. This is advantageous for companies that sell vegetable seed. Because the biggest market for veg seeds is the commercial growers, hybridisation has focused on making 'product' that keeps a long time and transports well, so with things like tomatoes, tougher skins takes precedence over a better flavour. As @philippasmith2 says, after quite a short while, people get used to what is sold as a tomato or a strawberry and the expectations of shoppers changes (a more extreme example is in meat - people who have only ever known supermarket chicken don't like the real taste of chicken - far too strong).
If you buy older seed varieties and collect the seeds to use next season, there will be a very slight divergence between your tomatoes and those of a grower somewhere else in the UK, especially if you carefully select the seed to be from the best fruit you grow. Over time, your home variety will become increasingly distinct. Then when some disease hits, or we get a particularly extreme weather year, your tomatoes may survive when mine don't, or vice versa.
People will buy what they like the taste or look of, but we should try to grow 'real' vegetables for ourselves, in order to preserve or even increase the genetic strength of tomatoes overall (and beans, and as many other veg as we can contrive to collect the seeds from).
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
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If you just take Celery as an example - why trim it to death and just leave the white stems ? The green gives it the flavour IMO but it doesn't fit in the packaging so off with it's head.
Seedless grapes, pomegranates - what's the problems with the seeds ? They will pass thru your system without any detrimental effect much the same as Cucumber and Tomato seeds. You can chose to Spit the seeds out immediately or just wait a while and S*it them.
The sale of tomatoes in SM's is also a good example - if it is red and round and says Tomato on the packet/shelf, that's what many people accept as a Tomato. The fact it often has no flavour at all doesn't resonate simply because the purchaser hasn't had the opportunity to taste a decent tomato and therefore accepts this as the norm.
I'm not saying that there haven't been improvements over the years of selective breeding and people's tastes are obviously different but there is a limit.
Because the biggest market for veg seeds is the commercial growers, hybridisation has focused on making 'product' that keeps a long time and transports well, so with things like tomatoes, tougher skins takes precedence over a better flavour.
As @philippasmith2 says, after quite a short while, people get used to what is sold as a tomato or a strawberry and the expectations of shoppers changes (a more extreme example is in meat - people who have only ever known supermarket chicken don't like the real taste of chicken - far too strong).
If you buy older seed varieties and collect the seeds to use next season, there will be a very slight divergence between your tomatoes and those of a grower somewhere else in the UK, especially if you carefully select the seed to be from the best fruit you grow. Over time, your home variety will become increasingly distinct. Then when some disease hits, or we get a particularly extreme weather year, your tomatoes may survive when mine don't, or vice versa.
People will buy what they like the taste or look of, but we should try to grow 'real' vegetables for ourselves, in order to preserve or even increase the genetic strength of tomatoes overall (and beans, and as many other veg as we can contrive to collect the seeds from).
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Shouldn't that read: "You must prepare children appropriately for anything"?