When you bite into a chocolate bar, scoop up coffee beans, or savor a salty cashew, have you ever stopped to wonder what these foods look like before they're picked, processed, and packaged?
Much of what the western world loves to eat isn't what we think it is, and the way foods look coming out of the ground can seem alien compared to their appearance on grocery store shelves.
If you need a reminder of how separated many of us are from the growing of our food, look no further.
Here are some of the most popular foods in America that look radically different before they're harvested and put on sale.
SEE ALSO: Here's what fruits and vegetables looked like before we domesticated them
1. Cashews look like nuts, taste like nuts, and are oh-so delicious.
But cashew nuts are not actual (botanical) nuts. The part most of us eat is actually the dangling seed of a cashew tree's apple. The flesh is eaten or fermented into alcohol in some countries.
Source: Purdue Horticulture
And we don't eat the whole seed. The outer shell contains a chemical that can cause a poison ivy-like reaction, since cashews are in the same plant family, so they're most often shelled.
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