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An overwhelming majority of what we eat is made from plants and animals. This means that composition of our almost entire food is chemicals from the realm of organic chemistry (carbon-based large molecules). Water and salt are two prominent examples of non-organic foodstuffs - which come from the realm of inorganic chemistry. Beside some medicines is there any more non-organic foods? Can we eat rocks, salts, metals, oxides... and I just don't know that?

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[-] WhoRoger@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Lots of vitamins and additives are fairly simple chemistry. C vitamin for example is ascorbic acid, easy to synthetise. Although it does consist of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, which technically makes it an organic compound, so it depends on your definition of organic. OLED screens aren't called organic because they're grown, but because there are organic compounds in their composition.

And that's really the case for everything. Life at the end uses just chemical processes like burning and dilution, and we can do almost anything in a lab. We're just usually not as effective. Glucose is the simplest sugar and easy to make, but just harvesting it from a plant is still much cheaper.

Anyway, you probably could ingest some tiny particles of iron oxide to get your iron, I guess.

[-] Radio_717@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Modern definition of Organic as it pertains to chemistry is any compound that contains BOTH hydrogen AND carbon.

Edit: Vitamins in general including absorbed acid are organic compounds because they contain both carbon and hydrogen atoms.

[-] schmidtster@lemmy.world -5 points 1 year ago

So adding anything to water would there-for make it organic…? I don’t think that definition works…

[-] Radio_717@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Just adding something to water doesn’t make it a compound. Adding something to water makes it a solution.

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[-] zik@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The word "organic" has a number of different meanings.

organic adjective (OF FOOD PRODUCTION)

  1. not using artificial chemicals in the growing of plants and animals for food and other products:
  2. being or coming from living plants and animals

...(skipping a few others)

organic adjective (IN CHEMISTRY)

  1. (of a chemical substance) containing carbon

So the chemistry definition isn't the relevant one when applied to food. The "Carbon based molecules" definition isn't even the original one and it only applies in the context of science, not food.

[-] someguy3@lemmy.world -2 points 1 year ago

Interesting question. I had to look up the definition of food, the story version is it's essential body nutrients.

You can synthetically derive some vitamins and things like that. But generally I can't think of anything other than salt and water that's not organic. You can start breaking down food into vitamins and minerals but that's not really the intent.

I know animals will chew/gnaw on bones to get some calcium, maybe that.

[-] Eheran@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Synthetic or not has nothing to do with whether something is organic or inorganic. That used to be the distinction 200(?) years ago, it is a bit outdated now.

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this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2023
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