That's an interesting study, but they also mention that if you could obtain the other chemicals from the oranges (perhaps the flavanones and carotenoids) separately you could get the same effect as eating the fruit. Obviously, oranges are not just vitamin C.
It's true that we don't yet know all the biochemical pathways of nutrition. My question isn't about current knowledge.
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.
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.