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Mmm ... Purple Disease-Resistant Potatoes
the_ph0x` writes: "An article on Reuters describes a new breed of potato as being resistant to disease, able to grow in low nutrient soil and ... purple. Not all that interesting unless you're from an area where blight is a problem. At least we'll know we can always live on potatos, which who doesn't anyway ... mmm purple tater-tots." Combine it with the hideous green ketchup Heinz is making, and eating can be like a Kadinsky ? painting!
The responses here show how much we've become factory farm zombies. Carrots are orange, potatoes are white, apples and tomatoes are red, etc.
In fact, what we're used to is what's convenient to ship or grow. If people were more concious of genetic diversity, we'd already have much more color on our plates. Orange carrots date from the last few hundred years, originally they were white or yellow or red. Apples came in various shades an combinations of yellow, red, and green. Corn can be blue, as well as potatoes. Tomatoes have a fantastically varied set of colors.
Some of these are now becoming known as "heirloom" varieties as people begin to understand how bland and overprocessed our diets have become.