Why do apples taste good?

Ehh . well, sorta . ehh . no.Populations evolve because of selective pressures. These pressures force populations to evolve to meet the terms of the environment, or the population, as often happens, goes extinct.Human metabolism evolved to crave fats and sugars since our ancestors (living in a sparse environment) had no way of knowing whether they were going to eat again for quite some time and fats and sugars pack a big calorie punch that can be stored for the lean times to come.Now we do away with the lean times and humans still crave fats and sugars. We can’t help it. It’s part of us.Our environment has changed. We gobble up fats and sugars by the truck-load; develop obesity, heart disease, hypoglycemia, diabetes, Democrats, all that bad stuff. Some members of the population can handle this new environment better than others. They thrive on junk food and democrat politics and they have more and healthier offspring than the others.Soon (over many generations) these “junk-food democrats” become more prevalent in the population as the others, who cannot thrive in a junk-food world, die off.The selective pressure is the change in environment from limited junk-food to copious availability of junk-food. Those who can cope (because their metabolism is such that this steady diet of junk doesn’t kill them) have a selective advantage, thrive and survive and reproduce like rabbits. Those that can not cope have a selective disadvantage and die off leaving but a few couch-potato offspring. Over the generations, the base level of human metabolism, as represented by the new majority of the population, has become a “junk-food democrat” metabolism.Looking back on this scene a thousand years from now, we would say that human metabolism evolved due to selective pressures (Natural Selection).

A main reason would be that tastieness could make animals eat the fruit more, and thus spread the seeds from the original apple.well, from a creationist standpoint, the apple is tasty because we need to eat it to get nutrients that would be hard to get otherwise.From an evolutionist standpoint (though I do not consider evolution my strong point) The apple tree could spread better with a tastier apple. Also, natural selection would allow for less tasty apples (mainly Granny Smith) to spread less far because they taste horrible.I apoligize for these views as I am not a botanist.

The vast majority of the apple varietals are the product of intelligent design - that is to say, purposeful breeding by humans.

Nope.Sorry but things made out of people can live for 100 years or more. Things made out of cows only live for (at most) 10.Putting something inside you that lives 10% of your life span pulls the average down. The best thing to eat is giant tortoise.Lttle known fact.Edited by Larni, : More throw away laughs.

Granny Smiths are the result of a chance hybridization in Australia in the 19th century, and they were cultivated because some of us like the taste, thank you so much.

iceage writes:
Some have theorized that avocado's had originally adapted to a symbiotic relationship with now extinct large mammals such the giant ground sloth. These giant mammals could swallow and pass the massive pits and disperse the seeds far and wide. However, since the seeds were large, bird eating the fruit were largely destructive, so Avocado evolved chemicals that were harmless to sloths but toxic to birds.How could a sloth spread a seed far and wide?Also if the avocado had "adapted to symbiotic relationship with now extinct large mammals", then the adaptation is no longer useful right? Then why doesn't it evolve back? Or does it still have a use?

Giant ground sloths got about more than their arboreal cousins, and are only recently extinct --- within the last few thousand years. Being toxic to birds is presumably still useful, though being non-toxic to sloths isn't any more. So the hypothesis has some plausibility.

Those chemicals probably cause the fruit to have its characteristic taste to humans, so there will be a great selective pressure for the avocados grown commercially to retain those chemicals. If they lose them, they will taste like rubbish and not be sown in the next planting.

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wow you are right. The giant sloth was about the size of a modern elephant and probably weighed about 5 tons. Next time I better do research before I say anything.

Tastiness is subjective though to the creature eating it. I'm sure a lion doesn't think an apple is tasty in the same way that human might.

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"It is better to shun the bait, than struggle in the snare." -Ravi Zacharias