Finally, an answer!

Have we checked all food to see if exploding them makes them into something better or did we just stop with corn?
- Let me tell you a little story about brassicas... broccoli, cabbage, bok choi, cauliflower, kohlrabi, canola oil. They're all this little guy. Edit: Shit! I missed the exploding part.
  
  And yet I love broccoli but hate cauliflower.
  
  Wait kohlrabi is related to broccoli. My mind is blow since I always think of it as a root vegetable(I know it’s not but still). Also I should add to my garden this year you don’t see it very often at store and my parents and grandparents loved it
  
  Looks similar to wild parsnip. But yeah, crazy how so many things can come from one species? Phylum? Can't remember the order of them.
- I've been dipping stuff in hot oil for awhile now and it appears to work for most of them.
- Potatoes Apples Marijuana Bananas Tulips Etc...
  
  Bananas are a similar one to corn too. Take something almost entirely inedible and cultivate it into something edible. Makes you wonder what convinced them to start.
  
  Tell me more about this exploded marijuana you speak of.
- Most starchy things can to some degree. Rice is one of the most popular alongside corn
- Detonating rice is also well respected.
- I mean, you basically have every modern fruit.

Lot of work for a dildo.
- It's not worth it if you don't make an effort.
  
  ITS BEEN A LOOOOOONG ROAD GETTIN FROM THERE TO HERE
  
  Everything's a dildo if you're brave enough.
- country girls make do
- You know, you could've just said: "What an interesting story, thanks for sharing."
  
  I, on the other hand, came up with a different response then the one you just chose :)

This is what these non GMO types always seem to forget: we've been modifying the crap out of everything for the past thousands of years. We're now justuch more efficient and smart about it.
- They always picture someone in a lab with syringes and special machines to "modify DNA". Most of the time it's just a couple of potted plants under a lamp and a cotton swab. For fruit trees, you're pretty much just replacing a branch with another branch. Tape and staples might be involved.
  
  Genetically modified plants is very different from selective breeding. Selective breeding mimics the natural evolution process, removing natural selection and replacing it with human decisions.
  Using a separate root stock from your fruiting trees isn't genetic modification or breeding. It's just taking desirable size features from a root stock and growing your desired fruit from that. It still remains two different plant, with two different DNAs. The fruit would produce a child of the fruit tree, the same as if it was grown from seed. If the root tree was allowed to flower it would create a seed the same as if it were never grafted.
  GMO are an extremely useful technology. When well regulated and tested will help produce food for the growing world population. The big problems with it are the consequences of it. Plant have been modified to tolerate high doses of weed killer, pesticides and fertilisers. These all help increase the productivity of the land, but the impacts are terrible on the local environment. Residual weed killer and pesticide may pose a risk to human as well.
- Made me think immediately about GMO and non-GMO anti-science scaredy cats.
- You're right. It's far more precise, quick, and predictable.
  
  How so
  
  What's the difference?
- This is what these non GMO types always seem to forget
  This is what these nauseating pro-GMO types always seem to forget - developing a food crop for thousands of years to become useful to humanity is not the same thing as destroying food security through capitalist monocropping with the aid of a few dodgy genes injected into something that never needed it in the first place.
  
  destroying food security through capitalist monocropping
  This has very little to do with GMOs.
  
  Yeah, all scientists are evil, all corporations are evil, all people working there are evil, it's all evil.
  
  Yes, while monocultures aren't great, GMO crops just speed up the process you mentioned first. Developing a food crop over thousands of years. If we can speed up that process and generate better crops, why wouldn't anyone want that?
  The whole politics around GMOs and greedy companies is something I wish didn't exist, but GMOs is the way to go.
- Do you think the Native Americans hundreds of years ago were wearing lab coats in clean rooms, CRISPRing fucking maize? Selective breeding is different than genetic modification. If you don't even know what it is or what you're talking about about AT ALL, to the point where you're conflating two completely dissimilar terms, maybe you should keep your opinions to yourself.
  
  Sorry, but it doesn't seem like you know what you're talking about. It's essentially the same process, the GMO process is just faster. Also, it was done well before CRISPR was a big thing.
  
  I know what you're saying in a way but with crispr you can change single genes and have specific targets. A cross changes thousands of genes at a time
  
  GMO is not monocropping either.
  
  Selective breeding is different than genetic modification.
  Nope. Both are genetic modifications.
  CRISPRing fucking maize?
  Also not true. CRISPR is bacteria mechanism and is not used in plants.
  
  So you should indeed keep your opinion to yourself, then.
  
  Hilariously ironic of you

uh-maize-ing

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) tireless breeding

Sorry, i don't eat gmo /s

I don't know if tireless is the right word, I'm sure they had time to sleep.
- They never came up with the wheel. Of course they were tireless.
  
  Booooo! 🍅🍅🍅
  
  Iirc they did come up with the wheel as some children's toys involved it, but just didn't find a practical use for it because they didn't have beasts of burden to pull carts.
  Take this with a grain of salt though because I have no idea where this trivia came from, it was just rattling away on my head.
- They were in no rush because they weren't forced to make red arrow go up.
  
  Best

What about all of the other varieties of corn? Are they not relatives to each other?
- Look, if you keep asking questions, we're never going to get these crappy corn husk crafts finished.
  
  They're called tamales!
- I just watched the Good Eats episode about corn so I can answer this: Yes, popcorn, hard corn, and sweet corn are all related to each other.
  
  What about candy corn?
  
  I knew of popcorn and sweet corn, but what is hard corn used for today? Animal feed?
- All corn varieties are all the same species.
  Domesticated corn can also still cross freely with the wild teosinte.
- All the corn we eat is basically the same, this is referring to the original ancestor to all of them

I have seen this image many times in my uni courses.
when european first reached the continent, the breeding of the plant was heavily advance, somewhat on the right side of thr image
this is one of the staple crops without which we could not survive.
the current varieties are so productive, but they require all modern farming methods, which can be impactful
if you want to apply biological agriculture, the mkst recent varieties are not a good pick, unless they actively support that
that image also serve as a quick explaination as to how our food systems evolved. When you read ancient folk tales, or even when you read about these plants in Biblical texts, imagine the one on the mid left. A small plant capable of supporting a limited amount of people
- What I think is more interesting in terms of New World staples is what the indigenous people of the Andes did with the potato. Not only did the cultivate dozens of varieties, they also learned how to freeze-dry them for long-term storage. That's amazing for people who just barely entered the bronze age by the time of European contact.

Damn I've never seen the evolution of corn like this before. Really interesting stuff!

For real tho - any estimations on how many gens/years it took/takes to get from A to at least C?

But is it non-GMO? /s

I seem to remember Bill posting a iscorngrass.com (or similar) site on twitter back when the riff was first popular. I'm not finding it if it still exists.

corn-y

Is this even true? Why would they keep breeding something inedible and practically useless hoping in thousands of years it'd be edible?
I really don't know, it just seems like a stretch
Edit: spelling
- It is true. They can trace the genetic lineage. The original plant isn't totally inedible, it's just less nutritious and harder to process. The same is true with wild grains in the Middle East. precursors of domesticated crops like wheat and barley were cultivated from wild grasses which produced less, had less nutrition and took more effort to process into flour.
  
  It's wrong to say they were useless like OP suggests. They were very useful. It was a crop you could reliably grow and come back to harvest.
  It also stored very well. The breeding was only to make it more useful. It was always useful.
  Much of the breeding was just selection. The crops you would pick and store would be larger. So we it came to plant your were using the biggest largest variety every year. A few generations of this would produce notable results. Then even finer and more deliberate selection would be done.
  
  Ah that makes sense. Thanks

The one all the way on the right is what used to be stock corn, meaning we gave it to stock animals or ground it into flower. It's not for human consumption the way it's eaten now. Actual maize is quite colorful and was modified for easier human consumption. Ever wonder why corn shits out whole? It's because America gave you our stock corn instead human corn. Congratulations America, I you played yourself.
- You can see corn in your poop because the outside of the corn kernal is made of cellulose, a.k.a. dietary fiber, that stuff that's good for you because it isn't digested and you poop it out. Meanwhile the nutritious inside of the corn kernal has been easily digested by your body as normal.
  The corn in your doody is not the nutritional content, it's the nutritional content's used empty packaging which helps clean the pathways on its way out.