Wait, what exactly are we discussing here?
Isn't it tautological that if you fully understood the health-related properties of an orange, and engineered a food that had all the nutritional properties of an orange and yet was not an orange, then eating the engineered food would be functionally identical to eating an orange from a health related perspective?
Doesn't the fact that the definition of "orange" isn't ontologically fundamental imply that this feat is possible?
If we could do everything fruits and vegetables do through other means, then it goes without saying that we wouldn't need to eat fruits or vegetables.
The question is can we engineer such a food. I know many people who would say that we simply can't do it with current or near-term technology (like, say, in twenty years).
This is a thread where people can ask questions that they would ordinarily feel embarrassed for not knowing the answer to. The previous "stupid" questions thread is at almost 500 questions in about a month, so I think it's time for a new one.
Also, I have a new "stupid" question.