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?

  • Lvxferre@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    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@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      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@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        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.