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I read the description "fully synthetic" here as practically specifying a product which can be created by manufacturing process from elements - as the clinical

I read the description "fully synthetic" here as practically specifying a product which can be created by manufacturing process from elements - as the clinical term "elemental diet" also accidentally suggests. Such a product is also what the lead comment supposed was possible as an alternative to agricultural production of food. To me this is the context of "synthetic foods" which we replied under. From intuition and lack of ever coming across news of an alternative capabilty, I strongly suspect that besides salts and water most of the materials found in medical "elemental" diets ( carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, amino acids, etc) are refined and processed extracts of natural, oops.. grown;) ingredients. This product guide partially confirms my intuition [1] : >" Modified cornstarch and maltodextrin derived from corn are two commonly used ingredients in elemental diets. Physicians’ Elemental Diet instead contains tapioca maltodextrin and no modified cornstarch. " [1] http://data.integrativepro.com/product-literature/info/physicians-elemental-diet.pdf http://data.integrativepro.com/product-literature/info/physi... ... >I think human extinction is super important to worry about and not enough people do it. Not enough influential people do for sure, or of less absolute but much less unlikely threats. Oh well, we made it this far, not all bad, at least there is much room for improvement.

jessriedel 8y ago
Sure, that's a fine criticism to keep in mind. However, I believe the idea is that although the ingredients come from agricultural sources, they have been purified to such a degree that it doesn't matter; they're chemically identical to synthetic ones. (The key question was whether truly synthetic diets are nutritially satisfactory, not whether they are economically efficient to produce now...which they are not.) Of course, it's still conceivable that some secret molecule is needed by the body in minute quantities that was insufficiently filtered from the agricultural sources, but at some level of effective purification that worry starts to bleed into homeopathy.
- SalMonella 8y ago
  Nathaniel. I can see what your saying... Paul`s remark is neat, on thursday I got a top of the range Nissan GT-R: after making $6612 this last four weeks and just a little over ten-k last munth. this is certainly the easiest work Ive had. I started this five months/ago and almost straight away began to make more than $71 per-hour. I work through this website, www.Mesalary.com
- strainer 8y ago
  We didnt find any reference to a "truly synthetic diet", so it remains a conceptual talking point which is of unknown economy and unknown capability to produce, yet it has been too easy to confuse the medical diet as evidence of the concept. > that although the ingredients come from agricultural sources, they have been purified to such a degree that it doesn't matter; they're chemically identical to synthetic ones. Technically speaking, they are not chemically identical. They are in certain contexts chemically equivalent, subject to 'trace' contamination, bonding and structural differences which are assessed to be biologically insignificant. Synthesis can produce materials which are purer (as in simpler) than grown, but it is prohibitively difficult to achieve an exact, indistinguishable configuration of biologically generated materials. It could be common to regard this distinction between identity and equivalence as pedantic, yet it is wrong and unscientific - the difference in meaning between these terms has categorical consequences to deduction. Loose claims of chemical identity, gloze over the theoretical component of equivalence - which is subject to change. Prions for example were easily described as chemically equivalent to their other phenotypes, until they became common knowledge around the 90s. Differentiating phenotypes in chemical terms surely involves advanced notation which I expect neither of us are familiar with. For sure homeopathy is a fanciful placebo based therapy, but even pure chemically speaking "simple" H2O carries perplexing detail at the molecular level[1] Whatever might be theoretically insignificant or not, is subject to ongoing insight and discovery. [1] http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/water/clusters_overview.html http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/water/clusters_overview.html
  - jessriedel 8y ago
    > bonding and structural differences which are assessed to be biologically insignificant. Are there specific plausible possibilities in nutritionally required molecules that you are referring to here, or is this just a "no one knows for sure" argument? > Prions for example were easily described as chemically equivalent to their other phenotypes Did anyone ever actually point to a container of prions and mistakenly describe them as chemically identical? When I said "chemically identical", I did not merely mean the amino acid sequence. Like, we have x-ray diffraction for this stuff. There is a reason vitamin supplements work to correct vitamin deficiencies. There is just not much room for unknown unknowns here.

jessriedel 8y ago

Sure, that's a fine criticism to keep in mind. However, I believe the idea is that although the ingredients come from agricultural sources, they have been purified to such a degree that it doesn't matter; they're chemically identical to synthetic ones. (The key question was whether truly synthetic diets are nutritially satisfactory, not whether they are economically efficient to produce now...which they are not.) Of course, it's still conceivable that some secret molecule is needed by the body in minute quantities that was insufficiently filtered from the agricultural sources, but at some level of effective purification that worry starts to bleed into homeopathy.

SalMonella 8y ago
Nathaniel. I can see what your saying... Paul`s remark is neat, on thursday I got a top of the range Nissan GT-R: after making $6612 this last four weeks and just a little over ten-k last munth. this is certainly the easiest work Ive had. I started this five months/ago and almost straight away began to make more than $71 per-hour. I work through this website, www.Mesalary.com
strainer 8y ago
We didnt find any reference to a "truly synthetic diet", so it remains a conceptual talking point which is of unknown economy and unknown capability to produce, yet it has been too easy to confuse the medical diet as evidence of the concept. > that although the ingredients come from agricultural sources, they have been purified to such a degree that it doesn't matter; they're chemically identical to synthetic ones. Technically speaking, they are not chemically identical. They are in certain contexts chemically equivalent, subject to 'trace' contamination, bonding and structural differences which are assessed to be biologically insignificant. Synthesis can produce materials which are purer (as in simpler) than grown, but it is prohibitively difficult to achieve an exact, indistinguishable configuration of biologically generated materials. It could be common to regard this distinction between identity and equivalence as pedantic, yet it is wrong and unscientific - the difference in meaning between these terms has categorical consequences to deduction. Loose claims of chemical identity, gloze over the theoretical component of equivalence - which is subject to change. Prions for example were easily described as chemically equivalent to their other phenotypes, until they became common knowledge around the 90s. Differentiating phenotypes in chemical terms surely involves advanced notation which I expect neither of us are familiar with. For sure homeopathy is a fanciful placebo based therapy, but even pure chemically speaking "simple" H2O carries perplexing detail at the molecular level[1] Whatever might be theoretically insignificant or not, is subject to ongoing insight and discovery. [1] http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/water/clusters_overview.html http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/water/clusters_overview.html
- jessriedel 8y ago
  > bonding and structural differences which are assessed to be biologically insignificant. Are there specific plausible possibilities in nutritionally required molecules that you are referring to here, or is this just a "no one knows for sure" argument? > Prions for example were easily described as chemically equivalent to their other phenotypes Did anyone ever actually point to a container of prions and mistakenly describe them as chemically identical? When I said "chemically identical", I did not merely mean the amino acid sequence. Like, we have x-ray diffraction for this stuff. There is a reason vitamin supplements work to correct vitamin deficiencies. There is just not much room for unknown unknowns here.