[swatcoder]

Commercial incentives are to engineer varietals for contemporary aesthetics (sweet, unbitter, colorful, unblemished, large) and crop turnover (rapid growth, tolerance for depleted soil), nutrition has been way down on the priority list for nearly a century now.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-an...

If you don't believe food is sweeter and less nutritious, you're firing a shot at many-billion-dollar industries that have been earnestly been trying to optimize the above for all that time.

It's not a pleasant thing to believe, but its hard to refute.

IIRC, You should be able to do your own deep dives here:

https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/food-search?type=SR%20Legacy&query=

[Attummm]

To add to your point.

The food industry, like any other industry, focuses on numbers. Consumer spending favors new varieties of fruit with sweeter taste (e.g., increased glucose/fructose content). This process has led to our current comical situation where fruit, which is perceived as natural, has become unfit for consumption by animals.

>Fruits have gotten too sweet for some animals and zookeepers have had to find alternative foods.

https://weather.com/news/news/2018-10-03-fruit-so-sweet-zoo-...

[liontwist]

There is a large and wealthy segment of the population concerned about food health and quality, and large companies who market to them. Are their values not being met? Or are you just describing the quality received by the average consumer.

[magicalist]

> It's not a pleasant thing to believe, but its hard to refute.

Refute what? There still hasn't been any evidence provided for this claim.