Apart from water and salt, are there any inorganic foods?

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?

Sibbo, (edited )

Some people with too much money eat gold-plated food. So in a sense, gold is food, and it’s not an organic molecule.

zik,

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.

ParsnipWitch,
@ParsnipWitch@feddit.de avatar

That our diet stems from mostly molecules described in organic chemistry can also be the direct result of the fact that there are vastly more molecules considered “organic”: about 19 million are known and the number is growing!

While for anorganic compounds, there are only about 100,000.

The separation into organic and inorganic chemistry is really only done to make it easier to talk about broader subjects in science. We need and use obviously a lot of compounds that aren’t carbon based large molecules.

pjhenry1216,

If you're asking if you could survive off only non-organic, than no. Your body won't generate energy from those things. Broadly fat, carbs, and proteins are the primary sources (there are others, but they can mostly be shoe-horned into one of those or they're insignificant sources).

You also need a better definition of "food." You can ingest a lot of things that are considered inorganic and not die, but that doesn't make them food. You'll still essentially die of malnutrition though. So your body will still starve, so I guess you could use that as part of the definition of food I suppose. But then salt doesn't count as a food anymore, neither does water (but that makes sense at least... water has never been considered a food really).

I think you're using a lot of words that have ambiguous meanings that folks don't usually think about and that's going to affect a lot of answers.

Taleya,

Bicarbonate soda, used heavily in baking. Vinegar (acetic acid as opposed to natural fermentation)

skillissuer,
@skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

acetic acid is organic, as in, it is an organic compound

AmidFuror, (edited )

Bicarbonate is also organic.

Edit: I found a source that says an organic compound must have a carbon-hydrogen bond. I knew CO and CO2 were inorganic, but more as an exception.

skillissuer,
@skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

i wouldn’t say that bicarbonate or carbonate are organic, as derivatives of carbon dioxide. protonation state shouldn’t change if compound is organic or not

neither is CN-, HCN, HOCN, metal carbonyls, oxalates or oxalic acid. i’d say that phosgene, urea and CCl4 are organic. same goes for higher homologs (HSCN, thiourea, thiophosgene, CS2 and so on)

someguy3,

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,

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.

fiat_lux,

Can we eat rocks, salts, metals, oxides… and I just don’t know that?

You'll die without Iron, Calcium, Potassium, Magnesium, Zinc etc. in your diet. Your body relies on a lot of metals and salts to function.

You can see an example of a food's breakdown here to see all the metals and salts involved in foods: Nutrition data for rice (make sure you scroll to the "Detailed Nutrition Data" section and expand the categories like "Minerals")

Fun fact, calcium supplements are Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3) - literally chalk. But for metals which are deliberately added to food, check out the Lucky Iron Fish developed to address anaemia in Cambodia.

NumbersCanBeFun,
@NumbersCanBeFun@kbin.social avatar

The lucky iron fish is such a simple solution I was a bit shocked it was only invented in 2008. It really goes to show you that we really haven’t thought of everything yet and there is a lot left to contribute to knowledge and science.

fiat_lux,

I know, right? I was blown away by the same when I learnt about it. Medical science is so young though, we haven't really had much of an understanding about the chemistry of our bodies until this past century. God knows what ailments I've got that someone in 100 years will be all like "just dip this rock in your lunch, it's that easy to cure".

swab148,

Reminds me of why they added iodine to salt .

pjhenry1216,

I mean... it seemed like a good idea and all, but it didn't help Cambodia. It's like only a couple paragraphs down in your link. It only addresses iron-deficiency based anemia which was not the main cause of anemia in Cambodia.

fiat_lux,

Sure, but it still works for actual iron deficiencies, even if that wasn't the anaemia cause Cambodians were dealing with.

I'm actually considering buying one for myself, I mostly eat vegetarian foods.

keenanpepper,

Cooking in a cast iron pan will give you even more iron.

fiat_lux,

True, but they're very heavy and I can't just throw cast iron in the dishwasher.

Dmian,
@Dmian@lemmy.world avatar

I’ve seen gold leaf put in food. It doesn’t hurt your body, apparently, but I guess you take nothing of value from it.

_thebrain_,

If you eat enough you will eventually develop gold plated poo 4-12 hours later, and I think that is something!

FlyingSquid,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Edible clay is something that is actually sold as a product for people to eat. It’s not metaphoric. It is exactly what it sounds like.

Devi,

There's an MLM that just sells mud, then people eat the mud. I don't understand.

Ertebolle,

A number of food additives don't contain any carbon atoms; if you follow the links from the Wikipedia article on food additives you can find a bunch, for example sodium bisulfate which is a color retention agent.

There are also some interesting cases like the antifoaming agent Polydimethylsiloxane (found in trace amounts in, among other things, Chicken McNuggets) which I believe is technically a hybrid organic/inorganic polymer.

roguetrick,

Many minerals that are quite essential are used by other organisms so we get it that way, but that doesn't mean we have to. A good example is iron. Rust isn't a bioavailable form of iron compared to what you'd get from plants and animals, but you could eat rust and make some of the iron in it ferric chloride that you could then use for making hemoglobin. It's just not very efficient. What you can't do is get energy from inorganic molecules. We can only get energy from things on the citric acid cycle(or are made up of components of it), alcohols, sugars, fats, and proteins.

SpaceNoodle,

Baking soda is also an inorganic compound.

lvxferre,
@lvxferre@lemmy.ml avatar

Hydrochloric acid, sodium hydroxide: common food additives to balance its pH. Technically included by the OP, as they’re made from water and salt.

Silica: another common food additive (anticaking agent). Arguably “not food” because your body will simply poop it, undigested.

Metallic iron: if you’re cooking in a metallic pot, some of the metal leaks into the food. Actually good in this case as iron is an essential mineral.

Metallic lead [historical]: the Romans used lead pots quite a bit, specially to boil either vinegar or barely fermented wine (mustum). The result is extremely sweet due to lead acetate, the first artificial sweetener that I’m aware of …and extremely toxic. (OK, it’s a partially organic salt due to the acetate anion, but still.)

Calcium carbonate: already mentioned by another user. It’s essential to nixtamalise maize, but it’s also used for stuff like candied pumpkin cubes.

ValiantDust,
@ValiantDust@feddit.de avatar

In recent years, activated charcoal.

(Because many people apparently don’t know this: Don’t eat activated charcoal if you take any medication, it can render your medication ineffective)

Edit: Wait, I’m dumb, charcoal is very much carbon-based.

lvxferre,
@lvxferre@lemmy.ml avatar

Edit: Wait, I’m dumb, charcoal is very much carbon-based.

I think that it still fits. People don’t usually consider amorphous carbon, diamonds, graphite or fullerene as “organic”, even if carbon-based.

ValiantDust,
@ValiantDust@feddit.de avatar

I have to admit, chemistry has been a while and I don’t remember the exact definitions of organic vs inorganic chemistry, so I just went off the “carbon-based” in the OP.

lvxferre,
@lvxferre@lemmy.ml avatar

The textbook definition is something like “carbon covalently linked to other junk”. (The other junk is usually hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, sulphur.) So it usually excludes [macro]molecules made exclusively of carbon, like those.

Radio_717,

Charcoal and activated charcoal are not amorphous carbon compounds because their structures contain other elements than just carbon.

lvxferre,
@lvxferre@lemmy.ml avatar

That’s a fair point - you’re right that typically charcoal does have bits of hydrogen and oxygen, to the point that its empirical formula is around C₇H₄O, so by textbook definition it is organic. However I think that it falls into a grey area due to the relatively small amount of the “other components”, and perhaps because of the structure?

Radio_717,

Im finding that people have strong opinion on what qualifies as organic. Haha.

I think it’s cool I can talk to people about chemistry outside of work tho. None of my friends understand anything about what I do for a living.

lvxferre,
@lvxferre@lemmy.ml avatar

I thought that you made meth in your basement? Jesse, we need to cook!

Jokes aside, it’s nice for me to discuss Chemistry too. Without going too much into details, Chemistry was part of my life for a long time, and I miss it quite a bit.

WhoRoger,
@WhoRoger@lemmy.world avatar

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, (edited )

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.

Edit2- I left out a key piece of information. The carbon and hydrogen need to be covalently bonded as well not just part of the compound.

schmidtster,

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

match,
@match@pawb.social avatar

sorry, are you interchanging solution and compound here?

schmidtster,

Pointing out the nuances of not being specific in a science discussion.

Radio_717,

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

schmidtster,

Depends on the definition you use… which is exactly why we are here.

pjhenry1216,

Compound is absolutely different than solution. That's not a varying definition amongst scientists. Compounds have a meaning. There's no ambiguity. Organic compounds have a very nebulous definition and there isn't consensus. One such meaning does include most hydrogen carbon compounds. Others include carbon-carbon based compounds (but by definition, a compound requires more than one element, so diamond for example does not fit). You're correct in pointing out nuance for the meaning of organic. You're just digging a hole trying to defend the idea the other person's statement could be interpreted as adding anything to water makes it organic.

Eheran,

Seeing that you claim this more than once, here is a simple link to correct this assumption: Wiki: Organic compound

Radio_717,

Your link claims any compound with carbon is organic (there are exceptions listed) which really doesn’t fit either since there so many exceptions.

I was glib with my organic chemistry because it’s not just hydrogen atoms specifically but more the covalent bond between carbon and hydrogen that makes it organic so they have to be bonded covalently to be considered organic.

There’s still exceptions to this definition but they’re far fewer and usually only found in extremely unstable compounds like the fully halogenated fringe cases you mentioned in another comment.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • random
  • uselessserver093
  • Food
  • aaaaaaacccccccce
  • [email protected]
  • test
  • CafeMeta
  • testmag
  • MUD
  • RhythmGameZone
  • RSS
  • dabs
  • Socialism
  • KbinCafe
  • TheResearchGuardian
  • oklahoma
  • feritale
  • SuperSentai
  • KamenRider
  • All magazines
    •