Food that must endure two to three weeks of jostling in the back of a truck from Central or South America to get to our grocery shelves would be reduced to a pulpy mess if agribusiness used heirloom varieties like the ones your grandmother or great-grandmother grew from seed she had saved from the year before. When the food giants expanded beyond the US border looking for sources of more and more of our fruits and vegetables, they solved this problem by genetically engineering their produce to be unusually tough. If you doubt this, slice open a grocery store tomato and one your grandmother grew from seeds your family has saved down through the years and see for yourself. But it’s not just the toughness; it’s also the fact that most grocery store tomatoes taste almost completely alike. That’s because there’s only a small number of genetically engineered varieties compared to the countless local varieties. So the local food isn’t just more tender; it’s more interesting as well.