You may believe it or not, some of the daily nuts, vegetables, and fruits you eat today happen to be man-made hybrids. That’s where man-made fruit and veg come into existence. Man-made foods are created in labs with the help of selective breeding. It is the procedure where plants with favorable traits happen to be regrown.
With that being stated, there are rare instances where insects are also responsible for nurturing hybrid plants with the help of cross-pollination. Let us learn more about this topic.
Man-made fruit and vegetables exist nowadays. Of course, insects would never have been capable of cross-pollinating the plants if humans had not planted them in their area. Below is a list of man-made vegetables and fruits that people consider to be natural.
Orange
Orange is in the list of man-made fruit and veg that exist today. But every variety of orange traces back to the man-made hybrid when Mandarin was crossed with pomelo. Pomelo refers to a bitter fruit as grapefruit while Mandarin is a sweet variant. Mandarin is orange in color, so many people confuse it as orange, though it is just an ancestor of orange. It is one of those man-made foods that is believed to have first been produced in Southern China.
Cauliflower, Broccoli, Kale, and Cabbage
Is broccoli man-made? Is cauliflower man-made? If these are the questions on your mind, you need to know that cauliflower, broccoli, kale, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, collard greens, and numerous closely related veggies happened to originate from the same plant species. Known as Brassica oleracea, the original form of this species is known as wild mustard and it exists today.
These are some of the man-made hybrid vegetables that grew in some parts of the Mediterranean and Europe about 2500 years ago. The taste of the hybrid vegetable list greatly depended on where it was grown. Ancient Greeks and Romans soon understood that they could plant them for food, so they happened to be engaged in selective breeding techniques followed by planting seeds from large leaves of wild mustard.
Is cauliflower man-made? The answer to your question is yes. It was also done through selective breeding procedures that continued in the 1600s when people bred wild mustard with larger leaf buds.
Peanut
Peanut refers to a hybrid of two ancient types of peanuts, the Arachis duranensis, and the Arachis ipaensis. Both the plants were discovered far away from one another, and they could not have crossbred naturally. Ultimately, researchers discovered that the ancient settlers within South America took the first variant from the endian values while they migrated into Bolivia before 10000 years.
Peanut is one of those man-made foods that settlers quickly did not realize the potential of. Bees earlier cross-pollinated both the kinds of peanuts and the result is the new peanuts of today.
Grapefruit
Grapefruit comes under the list of manmade fruit and veg in our list. Relatively being a new hybrid, grapefruit first originated around 1693 when a captain transported citrus Maxima seeds to the West Indies and grew them near some orange trees. Later, the orange and pomelo cross-pollinated to develop the grapefruit. This is how man-made fruit and vegetables came into existence, mostly through cross-pollination.
Ultimately, the grapefruit reached the United States in the year 1823, however, was mistaken as a pomelo. It was in 1837 when grapefruit was determined to be considered as a distinct fruit itself. But, botanists still were perplexed about the origin of grapefruit. In 1948 it was discovered that grapefruit was a hybrid of the orange and the pomelo.
Carrots
Carrot is one of the man-made hybrid vegetables that has not always been orange. Organic carrots were either purple or white or possibly not edible. There used to be situations where white carrots were consumed during the Roman empire, however, historians believed that they might have been white carrots, parsnips, or both.
Ultimately, the orange carrot that you consume today refers to a hybrid of the yellow carrot. The yellow carrot is a hybrid of the white carrot which was earlier consumed in the Roman empire. With the continuation of the selective breeding technique for making man-made foods, the carrots happened to be muted from white two yellow, and ultimately orange. The procedure of selective breeding for carrots was preceded until modern days when it comes to improving their color and flavor, as per researchers and botanists.
Also read: Most Expensive Fruits in the world
Wrapping Up
These were some of the fascinating facts about man-made fruits and veg in the article above. We have highlighted some surprising histories of the common vegetables and foods that will leave you amazed. Go through the article to know how botanists realized the importance of ancient veggies and fruits and develop their man-made counterparts with the help of cross-pollination and selective breeding techniques.
