sharr_zeor t1_iuggebo wrote on October 31, 2022 at 3:14 AM

Natural selection

The sweet fruits got eaten, and the seeds spread, causing those plants to thrive, and reproduce, and so on

the ones that were bitter didn't get eaten, and therefore couldn't spread and thrive and eventually died out.

HazeThere OP t1_iuglhim wrote on October 31, 2022 at 4:02 AM

This makes a lot of sense, but how does that explain lemons and limes?

sharr_zeor t1_iugoqc1 wrote on October 31, 2022 at 4:38 AM

It's the same, they just ended up adapting differently.

The basic premise still applies, one plant mutated to be sweet/sour/bitter/spicy etc It's neighbour plant mutated to be less so

Animals/humans liked one version more, and liked the other version less, so those plants get eaten, and the seeds get spread

In some cases, humans specifically liked certain tastes so we manually selected and bred plants with specific mutations and variations to get the flavours we wanted