we have a small community garden in which we grow some fruits and vegetables in the summer, including tomatoes, strawberries, carrots, cucumbers, apples etc, some of these plant species are many decades old and they taste amazing
if you compare these to their commercially sold counterparts, you’ll find that the latter are very watered down, rubber-like, overgrown substances, optimized for transportation and storage, not for taste, and taste as though someone verbally described their taste to an alien, who later tried to reproduce it from scratch and added too much water
strawberries, blueberries and tomatoes have been hit the worst in my opinion, it’s so bad that I try to avoid these as much as possible
I observed this trend everywhere I’ve been, and what worries me is that a ton of people may be unaware that all of these things actually taste amazing in their “conventional” variants, plus due to their seeming unpopularity these species are starting to slowly disappear
anyone else notice this?
To be fair, it’s also due to the consumer demanding less perishable products with a shelf-life similar to other products. Saves you a trip to the supermarket if you can buy everything in one go, instead of having to go more often just for the fresh items. Since people are getting more aware of healthy diets and eating fresh more often, the market has adapted to that by offering more for those who want veggies, but don’t really care about quality (or don’t know the differences).