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

    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@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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.