Tegan

And Jonathan's asking, should we actually be eating ancient fruit rather than modern varieties that have been bred to be higher in sugar?

I love talking about ancient fruits and vegetables.

I'm so excited to talk about this.

Well, the thing with modern fruit and vegetables is that often what they're bred to be good for is size, yield from a particular plant and shelf stability or being able to be transported.

And it seems to me that if something's higher in sugar, it's perhaps more likely to go off more quickly than something that is lower in sugar and maybe a bit more shelf stable.

So really the question from Jonathan is, should we be seeking out ancient varieties?

And I think this sort of plays to this idea of, you and I have talked about it before, some brilliant researcher in the US calls it paleo-fantasy.

This idea that our ancient forebears had an inherently better lifestyle than us.

And it also kind of suggests that it's been a homogenous state across humanity for all of this time.

We only started agriculture 10,000 years ago, which in the broad scheme of things is very recently in terms of our evolution.

But to say that you need to eat a plant-based diet or need to eat like people did in the olden days, it is harder to do because the sorts of plants that we have access to now are quite different to what our ancestors had.

Yeah, keep a broad brush strokes, not trying to optimize every single tiny aspect of our lives.

Oh, really?

That's because they haven't been bred for having a long shelf life like the ones that you get in the supermarket.

He's a man of science.

Yeah.

Well, Jonathan and Jamie, thank you both so much for asking your questions.

We love getting them.

Our email address is thatrash at abc.net.au if you want to ask us a question.

And it's also where you can send us some feedback.