3 ms·

> From a fundamental standpoint of physics and available materials, nutrients are relatively easy to get; as far as I know, most vitamins and minerals are prett

> From a fundamental standpoint of physics and available materials, nutrients are relatively easy to get; as far as I know, most vitamins and minerals are pretty cheap to either come by naturally or manufacture, and you don't need that much of any of them to keep a person healthy, so let's assume food energy is the real limiting factor here. Food is more complicated than this picture. So much that nutritionists have major differences over which basic materials are beneficial in bulk and which cause health problems. Vitamins, minerals and medicines are not automatically absorbed well by our digestive system. The many biological foibles of human metabolism and our symbiotic gut flora, still confounds expectations about what food can be and can do to health. There have been many, perhaps endless attempts to synthesize a wholesome food product - it would be worth a fortune. I am aware of zero successes to date and this shouldn't be the case if its not very difficult. We don't even synthesize sugar for consumption - maybe start there, but it is not even clear if/how much it causes diabetes or other diseases. We might be stuck for a while longer with reliance on foods that needs to live for bit (plant or animal) before we can sustain our own lives with them - seems to be a very old system requirement of multicellular life, and one that has not been cracked yet.

chiefalchemist 8y ago
Absolutely. We're not only feeding ourselves, we're feeding our gut. Get either one wrong and there's going to be problems.
slededit 8y ago
> There have been many, perhaps endless attempts to synthesize a wholesome food product - it would be worth a fortune. I am aware of zero successes to date and this shouldn't be the case if its not very difficult. We don't even synthesize sugar for consumption - maybe start there, but it is not even clear if/how much it causes diabetes or other diseases. There are lots of synthetic foods. The main problem is marketing. How are you going to sell your lab food when "processed" is bad and "natural" is good? The organic movement has taught people to distrust science in food, and its not something that is going to easily be reversed. The fact that most synthetic advances are used for cost reduction - not health doesn't help here either. The only place where this has seen any adoption is synthetic meats. But I expect vegetable replacements to be many decades off - if ever.
- baxtr 8y ago
  Could you cite studies and give examples?
  - slededit 8y ago
    What specifically are you looking for? That synthetic foods exist? Google provides many results on the subject. You probably have already eaten some synthetic ingredients. For a real world example sugar was first synthesized in 1953 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucrose#Chemical_synthesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucrose#Chemical_synthesis Carbohydrate synthesis is also a well studied field. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbohydrate_synthesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbohydrate_synthesis Many vitamin additives today are artifical. And of course artificial flavoring has vast commercial adoption. In the case of McDonald's french fries this was used to dramatically reduce the amount of saturated fat while maintaining the beef flavor - they are no longer deep fried in beef talow. We can't yet recreate the texture of a pepper, but we can certainly create a synthetic smoothie with the necessities of life. Organic chemistry is a rich field of study.
    - strainer 8y ago
      You didn't referenced anything approaching wholesome food. Of course there are a few simple compounds which are edible, but most artificial additives are extracted and processed from grown inputs, and this is susceptible to unexpected health problems as happened with exposure to trans fats for decades - now banned. > we can certainly create a synthetic smoothie with the necessities of life That is a low bar - being capable at any cost to synthesis a smoothie with 'the necessities of life' including growth? good health? You didnt even reference that.
      - slededit 8y ago
        “Wholesome” is not a scientific term. The food landscape is filled with pseudoscience, and whether a compound is synthesized or extracted is more of an economic decision not a scientific one.

chiefalchemist 8y ago

Absolutely. We're not only feeding ourselves, we're feeding our gut. Get either one wrong and there's going to be problems.

slededit 8y ago

> There have been many, perhaps endless attempts to synthesize a wholesome food product - it would be worth a fortune. I am aware of zero successes to date and this shouldn't be the case if its not very difficult. We don't even synthesize sugar for consumption - maybe start there, but it is not even clear if/how much it causes diabetes or other diseases. There are lots of synthetic foods. The main problem is marketing. How are you going to sell your lab food when "processed" is bad and "natural" is good? The organic movement has taught people to distrust science in food, and its not something that is going to easily be reversed. The fact that most synthetic advances are used for cost reduction - not health doesn't help here either. The only place where this has seen any adoption is synthetic meats. But I expect vegetable replacements to be many decades off - if ever.

baxtr 8y ago
Could you cite studies and give examples?
- slededit 8y ago
  What specifically are you looking for? That synthetic foods exist? Google provides many results on the subject. You probably have already eaten some synthetic ingredients. For a real world example sugar was first synthesized in 1953 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucrose#Chemical_synthesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucrose#Chemical_synthesis Carbohydrate synthesis is also a well studied field. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbohydrate_synthesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbohydrate_synthesis Many vitamin additives today are artifical. And of course artificial flavoring has vast commercial adoption. In the case of McDonald's french fries this was used to dramatically reduce the amount of saturated fat while maintaining the beef flavor - they are no longer deep fried in beef talow. We can't yet recreate the texture of a pepper, but we can certainly create a synthetic smoothie with the necessities of life. Organic chemistry is a rich field of study.
  - strainer 8y ago
    You didn't referenced anything approaching wholesome food. Of course there are a few simple compounds which are edible, but most artificial additives are extracted and processed from grown inputs, and this is susceptible to unexpected health problems as happened with exposure to trans fats for decades - now banned. > we can certainly create a synthetic smoothie with the necessities of life That is a low bar - being capable at any cost to synthesis a smoothie with 'the necessities of life' including growth? good health? You didnt even reference that.
    - slededit 8y ago
      “Wholesome” is not a scientific term. The food landscape is filled with pseudoscience, and whether a compound is synthesized or extracted is more of an economic decision not a scientific one.