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Comment by smhost | Hacker News Reader

It's crazy. I always subconsciously assumed that Red Delicious apples were how apples have always been (because they taste/look so much less appetizing than the other ones, therefore they must be the most "natural"), and that those other apples were genetically modified. And, being an immigrant, I thought it might even be a cultural difference, and that Americans just prefer the taste of Red Delicious. This is blowing my mind.

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> (because they taste/look so much less appetizing than the other ones, therefore they must be the most "natural")

This is just a problem of lack of familiarity with the space. Crab apples are indeed much less palatable than Red Delicious apples.

Funny story. Johnny Appleseed was famous for planting apple seeds across much of the U.S. But because his apples were grown from seed, they weren't hybrids and were probably all crabapples. And the only use for crabapples was making cider, so he was basically ensuring all these communities would have hard cider available when he came back to visit.

IIRC, most apples aren't genetically modified as we use the term today, just 'hybridized'/crossbred or whatever the word is. I think they're also all sterile.

I've been throwing the cores out into the wild parts of the lawn for 20 years. None have germinated.

birds love apple seeds and pepper seeds, though.

Now think of all the other areas of your life where the same thing has occurred, but you're not aware of it yet.

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