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I'm shooting from the hip here, but I think produce in America has gotten a lot better in the last 20 ish years. When I was young, my family was an early adopter of Natural and Organic foods, and the only places to get it were Whole Foods and local "health food" boutique grocery stores. We immediately noticed that, while processed foods didn't have the heightened artificial flavors, the produce and simpler items (such as seedy whole grain bread) were richer and more complex. There was plenty of coverage pooh-poohing the movement (heard plenty of "duh all food is natural and organic dummy" back in the day, and if you were anti-GMO you were letting people in Africa starve). Now, even the chain grocery store in my grandma's podunk town carries some Organic produce. Perhaps the popularity has encouraged "conventional" produce to pull back a bit on prioritizing looks at the cost of taste in order to compete.
Any Euro coming over to America (and possibly anyone from literally any other part of the world) could confirm to you that you were not crazy, and the food over there tastes like it's a side product of fracking. Happy it got better since I was there.
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