Flickr/Matt Lavin Next time you pop an ear of juicy sweet corn on the grill, remember this: Your summertime favorite wasn't always so tasty.

In fact, its predecessor, a wild grass called teosinte, barely resembles the sweet, crunchy vegetable we're now familiar with. And this was the case for many of our fruits and veggies.

So how did we get the produce we have today?

Turns out we've been tweaking their genetics for hundreds of years via selective breeding, whereby farmers select and grow crops with the traits they desire, like juicer fruit, over time.

GMOs involve a similar process, though it's more exact and rapid. Instead of hand-picking these genes over hundreds of years, scientists splice in genes from another organism. And despite all the vitriol they've inspired, the science on GMOs has never been clearer. A new report released Wednesday looking at three decades of research on GE crops found "no evidence" that they "are less safe to eat than conventional food."

Here are some of the foods that looked totally different before we first started growing them to eat: