[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Shazam

Sorry, but this just plain wrong. I've been grocery shopping since ####ing 1992 and it has absolutely gotten better.

Sorry, gotta go with the scientists again on this one.

For one thing, the food we grow has less flavor than it used to. Fruits, vegetables, meat—they've all become more and more bland over the past 60 years.

Harry Klee recently measured the flavor of 60 modern tomato varieties against 300 heirloom tomatoes, most of which date back to before World War II, and found across-the-board flavor diminishment. For example, the flavor compounds “methional” and “geranylacetone,” both of which contribute to the delectability of tomatoes, are down by two thirds in the modern group. “Guaiacol” and “2-methyl-1-butanol,” similarly, are down by half.

We have ourselves to blame. For the better part of a century, we have been selectively breeding tomatoes and other crops for money-making traits such as yield and shelf life, all the while ignoring flavor. Over countless generations, flavor has gotten lost. “It’s like reverse evolutionary pressure,” Klee says, “if you ignore flavor in your selection criteria, you will lose it.” Simply put, modern tomatoes don’t know how to be flavorful anymore.

https://www.epicurious.com/expert-ad...future-article