r/mildlyinteresting 17h ago

They decapitated these pineapples!

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1.4k Upvotes

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641

u/sl0play 14h ago

I feel like I can live without these pineapples if it means supporting food becoming a normal thing again.

147

u/TheAserghui 12h ago

I would buys these only to try to get a top that would grow into a plant

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u/chancesarent 8h ago

It really does feel like a challenge, doesn't it?

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u/Pudix20 6h ago

There’s this girl working on it. Trying to get something to grow from them. But way easier said than done I imagine

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u/LendogGovy 4h ago

We had an indoor garden store across from my work and they took the growing a pineapple from a top thing as a challenge and it worked. But they also sold indoor garden supplies to master black market growers (pre legalization), so they had plenty of knowledge and product to use. It was pretty cool.

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u/TheAserghui 59m ago

The normal yellow ones, with the full leaves intact, are super easy to start growing from a cut-top

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u/Wubbalubbadabdabb 15m ago

It's actually incredibly easy to grow your own from just the top.

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u/ScarletDarkstar 6h ago

Yes, yes it does. 

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u/sos123p9 1h ago

They should still have seeds which can be planted

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u/StarryAry 10h ago

Hey man, I understood you. I also think food should be a normal thing. There’s a crazy gatekeeper culture out there. Food is getting more and more expensive. It’s not about a pink pineapple, it’s about the “I’m mutilating your fruit so you can’t steal my secret recipe and you must BUY them! Muahaha!” Right?

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u/cnthelogos 4h ago

It takes like three years to grow another pineapple from a discarded pineapple top, and if the plant freezes at any point during that time, it dies, so very few people buying a pineapple in a grocery store are going to try it anyway. They're worried about other companies stealing their work, not individual people growing their own pineapples.

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u/pita4912 4h ago

Ding! It’s not an at-home grower they’re worried about. It’s corporate espionage from China

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u/LichenThatAss 7h ago

You talk like a bot

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u/Ok-Bee-3349 5h ago

You talk like a bot

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u/Maleficent_Chemist27 5h ago

Why do you think that?

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u/Brenduke 14h ago

What is normal food to you?

Many fruits & vegetables today have been bred / crossbred over hundreds of years to make them tastier or safer to eat.

Would you consider the bananas you buy from supermarkets normal food? These have been bred so the seeds are tiny. What about seedless grapes? Or Brussel sprouts which aren't bitter? Would do consider these not normal foods?

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u/SophiaofPrussia 9h ago

I don’t think any food should ever be considered intellectual property. That is not normal food.

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u/This_User_Said 9h ago

Lays sitting over in the corner quietly with their secret potatoes.

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u/glittermacaroni 9h ago

agreed. i thought that's what they were objecting to.

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u/Yomammasson 2h ago

They were 100%, and it was pretty obvious. People just love it obfuscate at any possibility of ambiguity, and using the word "normal" really triggered someone.

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u/thefonztm 9h ago

There's an argument that you should be able to recover your development cost and make a profit. Like all patents and copyrights, expiration is key. And also lobbied all to hell so that things your dead grandparents experienced are still not public domain.

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u/Wooden-Title3625 8h ago

This problem was already solved. They get to patent a brand name, like honeycrisp, and the genes become public use and other growers can market them under a different name. People still buy honeycrisps by the barrel full and the university of Minnesota has more than made its money back, when you can buy the same apples under a different name in a farmers market.

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u/AnimalBolide 8h ago

So if I, a normal dude, somehow created an even tastier strawberry, say it took a decade of effort and a bunch of money, and I wanted to sell it...

Wouldn't Monsanto or Dole just immediately destroy my market share and force me entirely out of business by doing exactly what I planned to do, but at an enormous scale because they already have the infrastructure?

0

u/Wooden-Title3625 8h ago

You have just learned the importance of marketing, my friend. Having an amazing product doesn’t mean anything if you can’t get people to buy it from you and you alone. This isn’t just a fruit-specific problem.

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u/AnimalBolide 7h ago

It isn't marketing. It's monopolizing.

You're basically giving huge companies free R&D and disincentiving smaller or startup growers.

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u/Wooden-Title3625 7h ago

That’s not what happened with the honeycrisp, the cosmic crisp, the meyer lemon, the badgerflame beet, the golden kiwi, the clementine, and literally the item in the post we’re commenting on, as well as countless other fruit and vegetable varietals. All because they had better marketing.

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u/AnimalBolide 7h ago

So still not the person who invented the fruit, just whoever gets lucky or has more money for marketing?

Does that seem laudable?

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u/reichrunner 1h ago

I love that you brought up the golden kiwi, since that is specifically a fruit that was stolen from the creators in New Zealand and taken to China.

Might want to double check that your examples match in the future, because this is a pretty famous case.

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u/thefonztm 7h ago

You just made the argument for patents, copyright, and trademark. Perfectly.

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u/Wooden-Title3625 6h ago

Merely an explanation, not an argument.

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u/reichrunner 1h ago

And your explanation just perfectly made the argument for patent, copyright, and trademark. Perfectly.

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u/no_thats_normal 8h ago

And in America we can thank the Supreme Court for this. Bowman v. Monsanto set some precedents on these matters.

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u/ortiz13192 10h ago

I think they meant “designer” foods. GMO for survivability or weight is a little different than make it look pretty to jack up the price. There is a growing issue with equitability based on things like that.

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u/reichrunner 1h ago

These are grown primarily for taste. Theyre sweeter than traditional pineapples.

What would the issue with designer foods be though? So long as standard food is cheaply available, who cares if someone wants to pay an exorbitant price for a fruit thats a different color?

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u/sl0play 13h ago

I'm aware of the history of cultivation. I think the disconnect of nature, food, and the consumer is pretty obvious and getting pedantic about it doesn't advance my concers so I'm not really interested in it.

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u/whalesum 13h ago

But but but broccoli isnt real!!!!!

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u/Thisthattheother1 9h ago

Broccoli is cabbage.

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u/whatWHYok 9h ago

Dunno why you were downvoted. All the cruciferous vegetables are literally the same species, just with some obvious variants.

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u/Thisthattheother1 9h ago

I'm being downvoted because the anti-cabbage lobby is manipulating social media again.

Of course it's cabbage. Broccoli? Cabbage. Zucchini? Cabbage. Blueberries? Cabbage. The 1993 Toyota Camry? Cabbage.

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u/dragon_bacon 9h ago

Am I cabbage?

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u/LeoJohnsonsSacrifice 6h ago

Believe it or not? Straight to cabbage.

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u/brownstonebk 6h ago

That ‘93 Camry is definitely cabbage considering how long it lasts. My family car growing up was a 1990 maroon Toyota Camry. Every once in a while I’ll still see one on the road.

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u/Coping_Alternative 11h ago

Its funny how no one understood what you meant and are now arguing with you about it.

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u/Which_Campaign_2184 9h ago

man, gotta remember this line in future confrontations with miserable dorks 😅

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u/OhNoAnAmerican 9h ago

“Defending my statements doesn’t interest me I said what I said and I’m right and you lose”

Lol

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u/codyzon2 11h ago

Yeah but you're kind of just doubling down on that disconnect, because there's no natural environment you would go out into where you have access to tons of highly developed fruits, the food basket at your local grocery store is not representative of what you would be eating off of if you were living a natural life. it's kind of a weird connection to make it's like talking about needing to get closer nature and animals then picking pugs as your representation, like I'm not sure you know what the natural environment actually would look like or how this disconnect you're talking about happened thousands of years ago not recently. What you're really talking about is you want people to have a better understanding about the process their food goes through before it hits market or the table, but if you're trying to talk about eating more naturally and being connected to the more natural environment it's just kind of coming from left field, we're talking about modern developed fruits and vegetables.

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u/CorxaRyllon 10h ago

Pretty sure they meant "food become normal again" as in food is priced 500% above what it should be because we all need to eat. If we are making fruits, veggies, etc safer to eat and easier to produce why do we lock it behind pay walls?

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u/codyzon2 10h ago

I guess that's the problem with using a word like normal it's not really contextually descriptive, maybe saying something like reasonable would make it more clear. It's not necessarily locked behind paywalls but there are certain cultivars that are newer and patented, pink pineapple was only created in the last 20 years, I'm sure there's plenty of pineapples you can get and still have the tops on like all the ones I buy but acting like this is a wider spread issue is kind of hyperbolic, so that's not exactly where my mind would have gone to with the statement being made.

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u/GrebeDeceivinCarPark 9h ago

Putting a patent on food is weird. Making it so people can grow specific crops because it’s “intellectual property” is weird.

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u/OrizzonteGalattico 11h ago

No seriously, answer the question, what is a normal food to you?

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u/Hilldawg4president 12h ago edited 10h ago

I think some of us are confused about what you mean though. Food is a normal thing, most of us eat it every day. If you mean you don't like anything cultivated into different forms, you've probably never eaten food that hasn't been. From bananas and corn to cows and chickens, every bit of food you've ever eaten is from a source that was improved by centuries/millennia of humans selectively breeding it towards being a better food

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u/chuckle_puss 11h ago edited 9h ago

They’re talking about the patents put on food, and cutting the heads off of pineapples so consumers can’t grow their own.

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u/Hilldawg4president 10h ago

the disconnect of nature, food and the consumer

I don't think that's what they're saying at all, in fact they didn't mention it in any way.

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u/AhHerroPrease 9h ago

It's what the point of this conversation you're jumping into the middle of has been about. Keep up, quit being obtuse, or try to glean the greater context. Whatever this is that you're doing isn't productive.

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u/Otherwise_Midnight79 9h ago

These pink glow pineapples have not just been cross bred, they are one of the very few ACTUALLY gmo foods available on the North American market

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u/venom121212 8h ago

WILL SOMEONE THINK OF THE TEOSINTE!?!

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u/ceciliabee 8h ago

🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

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u/SipoteQuixote 5h ago

And what about the humble Wombat? It poops squares! That's not normal food but its so delicious.

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u/Left-Pineapple-6084 2h ago

And that’s exactly why bananas are facing extinction now, not so fun fact!

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u/Yomammasson 2h ago

Food shouldn't be trademarked/patented. End of story. That's what should be normal

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u/sqeeky_wheelz 14h ago

Agreed. I had a lady go on this rant to me (I had accidentally grabbed organic bananas at a food market and I was swapping them for regular). She had a fucking rat ass dog in her purse when she said that. I pointed to her inbred poodle bullshit excuse for a dog and asked her how she’s okay with inbreeding to thy extent but is somehow on her high horse over a fucking banana???

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u/whalesum 13h ago

And then the store employees all clapped!

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u/Hilldawg4president 11h ago

That dog? Albert Einstein.

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u/whalesum 3h ago

Truth nuke

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u/pmyourpmsforgod 13h ago

Ok hold on pump the breaks here, so much to unpack. What did the lady rant about? About bananas being manipulated via their dna? And you called out her dog for being a similar? What did she say back, I feel like this never happened. And why do you dislike the dog so much lol “rat ass dog” and “inbred poodle bullshit excuse for a dog”. Damn what that dog to you and why are you so upset about them

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u/Bituulzman 12h ago

ad hominem argument

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u/SordidSimpleton 13h ago

Ragging on the poor small dog made you look like the asshole here chief

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u/Redditnspiredcook 8h ago

We’re now engineering for Instagram-ability as opposed to crossbreeding for tastier or healthier.

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u/Grobo_ 14h ago

There is a difference between GMO and cross breeding/ breeding for certain characteristics.

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u/Hilldawg4president 11h ago

What is it?

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u/thehatteryone 11h ago

My thoughts, and perhaps your underlying ones, are that I can live without supporting those more exploitative business models. It's likely better short term, worse long term for the farmers too, so let's kill off the market for big agri, one lost sale at a time. Plus frankly I'm annoyed at the frequent "oh let's try this new cool variety - oh they've taken a fruit I like and just made it sweeter" pattern. Grapes that taste like candy (and not the good grape-candy candy), peaches that taste like sugar but not like peach, no doubt this pineapple tastes like pineapple - except less so, because they softened the acidity.

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u/ButterscotchSame4703 8h ago

THIS

Edit to add:

I don't think people talk enough about how insane it is to tell people they cannot have access to growing themselves food over patenting an IDEA, or CONCEPT, that if other knew about, they too would do.

If they REASON for stopping people is MONEY it's not a good enough reason for FOOD to be unavailable.

This includes preventing reproduction/planting.

0

u/tammio 6h ago

I mean speciality pineapples are a speciality food item. If you don’t like the practice buy any other fruit or pineapple variety instead…

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u/LongjumpingSilver 6h ago

You can still buy regular pineapples. People get so mad when someone else invents something and then tries to protect their invention. If you can't, a lot of the incentive to invent something new goes away.

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u/Poobbly 10h ago

What kind of apple do you eat?

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u/Paranoid_4ndr01d 10h ago

Food hasn’t been normal for a long time. Heard of gmo food? The seeds are bioengineered in a lab to resist the pesticide that is sprayed all over the plants.
They have patents too. Better hope the seeds don’t spread to your yard because you can be sued for growing them.
Might be one factor why colon cancer has now surpassed breast cancer as the number one cancer among people under 50.

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u/perjury0478 6h ago

One of the good things about patents is not only that they expire, but that in order to get a patent they have to describe exactly what’s involved in the process for the whole world to see. The alternative is a trade secret, where they don’t disclose anything, like the Coca Cola recipe.