The Corn plant as we know it today peels easily, tastes sweet and juicy, and has 800 soft kernels.

But when it was first domesticated, (growing in an environment safe from predators, where humans could be selective, picking the plants that did more of what they wanted and less of what they didn’t like. This particular process, done over a period of time, is selective breeding (the process also works on animals.) it was 10 times smaller, peeled by being smashed into pieces, tasted like a dry, raw potato, and had only 5-10 very hard kernels.

Peaches as we know them today have soft edible skin and are sweet and juicy (delicious!). But when they were first domesticated in 5500 BCE (Before the Common Era), they were four times smaller and had waxy skin with an earthy, sour, and slightly salty taste.

And Watermelons, as we know them today, are available in seedless varieties, are almost fat and starch-free, taste delicious, and have a sweet smell. But when first domesticated in 3000 BCE, they were 100 times smaller, had 18 bitter, nutty seeds, and were high in starches and fats with a bitter taste. And it stunk!

Orange Carrots didn’t exist before 1600 CE (Common Era).

Red Grapefruit didn’t exist before government-sponsored radiation experiments performed in the 1950s, one in particular called Atoms for Peace; their goal was to promote practical uses for nuclear power outside of a wartime context. One particular project was the gamma garden; radioactive material was put in the middle of a regular garden, around which successive rings of plants were planted. The closest plants died of radiation poisoning, the plants farthest away were unaffected, but the plants in the middle mutated. Among them was the red grapefruit as we know it today. Most current red grapefruit are direct descendants of those atomic mutations.

In Medieval Europe, Pepper was worth ten times more than any other spice; it’s still the world’s most traded spice.

Chocolate is naturally bitter; for centuries it was roasted, ground, then added to stews or wine, but chocolate really took off in Europe when paired with sugar. Chocolate comes from the cacao bean plant; the pulp from the bean pods can also be eaten-it was the pulp-rather than the beans-for which the plant was originally cultivated.

All parts of the Potato are poisonous until cooked (don’t eat them raw).

Historically, European Protestants thought potatoes were evil; their curvy shape was too “suggestive.” The resistance was eventually overcome.

Yams and Soybeans are toxic to humans when raw (cook before eating).

Sweet Oranges as we know them were not developed until the 1400s CE; before then oranges were very bitter.

Sliced Bread was first commercially available on July 7, 1928 CE. Before then you had to slice the bread yourself.

Dom Perignon is named after the Benedictine monk who advanced the fermentation of this sparkling wine in the late 1600s, in a French province named Champagne (in the Middle Ages, Catholic monastic orders of monks were among the largest wine producers in France and Germany).

Canning was invented in 1810-first by sealing food in glass jars with cork and wax, then later with tin cans.

Without pasteurization, Milk is one of the most dangerous foods to consume-tuberculosis bacteria thrive in it! But when pasteurized, milk becomes one of the safest. But the pasteurization process destroys the vitamin C in foods!

Yeast are single-celled, microscopic animal organisms essential in the making of leavened bread (regular). The yeast will continue happily eating the sugars in the flour and water when regular bread dough is cooked. If there’s oxygen around, they’ll produce carbon dioxide as waste. The carbon dioxide’s trapped by the gluten in the flour, which in turn causes the bread to rise. As the dough continues to cook and get hotter, the entire yeast colony will die. As a result, millions of these microscopic animal corpses are baked into every slice of regular bread you eat.

Beer around 4000 BCE was drunk from a straw. Early unfiltered beers had sludge on the bottom (mostly yeast) and floating solid matter at the top that was mostly stale bread. A straw was the best way to get at the good stuff. But the sludgy non-beer parts were full of nutrition too and were often eaten once the beer was consumed.

Iodized Salt debuted in America in 1924 BE. For most of human history, salt was one of the most desired and expensive commodities in the world. But it’s also one of the most common substances on the planet. Iodine, like salt, is necessary for human life; salt is used as the iodine delivery option (it’s sprayed on) because 1. It doesn’t go bad 2. People tend to eat an adequate amount at a time. Iodized salt is one of the simplest and cheapest public health measures ever conceived and it enhances both physical health and intelligence at the same time.

Source: “How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler” by Ryan North, 2018