If evolving to bear good tasting fruit meant being able to spread seeds through animals and birds, why did some plants develop bad tasting fruit like chili and lemon?

Question

If evolving to bear good tasting fruit meant being able to spread seeds through animals and birds, why did some plants develop bad tasting fruit like chili and lemon?

In: 3

Answer 1

Bad tasting to whom? Seems to me most people like chili and lemons, why else would we grow so many?

There are two factors at play here. One, sometimes plants evolve to attract specific animals and deter others. Birds cannot taste the heat of chili peppers, but mammals can.

Two: humans have spent hundreds if not thousands of years cultivating and selectively breeding those plants for specific traits that we humans like, and thus removing any natural selective pressures on them. In most cases they are virtually unrecognizable compared to their wild ancestors.