For some time I have mused as to why animals do not evolve to taste bad.
The whole point to natural selection is to promote the survival of a species by simply finding that the members that have certain desirable characteristics which help it to live, go on to have children who are likely to have those characteristics who can then pass it on to their children and so on. Over time, most members of that species will have that characteristic.
Humans have been eating animals for many, many years so I could not understand why the animals that get eaten so often—chickens, cows, pigs—have not yet evolved to taste bad as a defense-mechanism. After all, any animals who taste good are more likely to be killed while the ones that taste bad are more likely to be spared. It makes sense.
A while ago however, the answer dawned on me. Not only do animals not evolve to taste bad but they in fact evolve to taste better. Of course it does not occur because of “natural selection” but rather due to human interference and meddling.
For example, lets say that there are two chickens, one happens to taste great should it be eaten, the other tastes awful. Of course both have been slaughtered already, that is how we know how they taste, however they have already been bred by a chicken farmer. The one who tasted good had children which were more likely to taste good as well. The one who tasted bad had children which were more likely to taste bad as well. Over several generations, the one offspring from the one who tasted good are bred more and more often for obvious reasons and the one offspring of the one that tasted bad are bred less and less often—perhaps only used for eggs, maybe not. After enough time has passed, the ones that tasted bad become extinct—at least on the farm—while the ones that taste good end up becoming ubiquitous.
In nature on the other hand, it is possible for an animal—for example and antelope—to evolve to taste bad because a lion will not breed them, it will only hunt them and in time learn which ones taste good and which ones taste bad. It will leave the bad ones alone and hunt the good ones. Eventually, the antelopes who survive will be the ones who taste bad.
Humans are meddlesome creatures who interfere with everything for their own interests. This is just another example of this albeit a rather major one, after all tampering with the very essence of evolution is not to be taken lightly.
In summary, chickens will not evolve to taste bad because of humans and their artificial selection.