For years, modern agriculture has bred bitter out of our food, but now we are learning it is increasingly important for cognitive and physical health.

Have you ever bitten into a fruit or vegetable so bitter, it made your mouth go dry with a sharp warning sting? Most people would immediately spit it out, fearing they had bitten into a bad one. But it wasn’t always this way.

Most fruits and vegetables we eat today would be all but unrecognizable to our ancestors because modern agriculture has spent decades engineering for better taste, environmental resilience, and high yields — with little regard for preserving the full flavors of wild plants. Much of the resulting produce on grocery store shelves has grown mild or sweet in flavor, designed to appeal to a mass consumer palate. That sits in high contrast to the complex tastes of wild, ancestral crops. Those ancient cousins of today’s produce carried a range of bitter and astringent notes, driven by compounds that served as natural plant defense mechanisms.

Read the full article on Offrange Magazine.