* wild oranges are sour oranges. Sweet oranges do not exist in the
wild! (They are exclusively the product of human cultivation.)

* check the archives for my Wild vs. Cultivated Fruit Comparison table.
It was posted on June 1 (or 2) of last year, as part of the Expo
postings. The archive is at:
            < http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/raw-food.html >

* Some wild fruit is sweet, but most is sour/bitter.  Also in the archives
(sometime Spring 1997: try keyword: "fruit toxin"), is an article
on the role of toxins in fruits. It turns out that fruits contain toxins
for a number of reasons:
-- regulate which species eat the fruit (i.e., limit consumption to those
species that distribute the seeds efficiently - e.g., if fruit design
favors dispersion by monkeys instead of birds)
-- control the amount of fruit eaten at one sitting, again to regulate
seed dispersal
-- (not in article) to provide some protection from insect attack.

* Wild pineapples are usually inedible; ditto the wild precursors of the
mango.

So, one could say that wild fruit must pass nature's REAL first law -
survival of the fittest (not to be confused with phony versions
promoted by fanatics). Wild fruit passes the law; cultivated fruit does
not. Nature is interested in survival, not sugar content. We humans
are the ones with the sweet tooth! :-)

Thanks for your post!

Tom Billings