Re:Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?
by alacombe on Friday December 07, 2018 @03:36PM
(#18631371)
Artificial food will always lack the bio-availabilities of real food our bodies evolved to process. For example, vitamin C artificially synthesized from glucose is more difficult to assimilate by the guts than "natural" vitamin C, especially when consumed with carbs.
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Re:Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?
by mirimir on Saturday December 08, 2018 @01:26AM
(#18634190)
Huh? Vitamin C is L-ascorbic acid.
It's a simple compound, comprising just 20 atoms: six carbon, six oxygen and eight hydrogen. It's related to glucose (and manufactured commercially from it). Also, it's water soluble, and I don't believe that there's an associated carrier.
That sounds surprising. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3847730/ suggests that there is no difference in bioabsorption in humans between synthetic and natural vitamin C, particularly in the cases where you're not taking straight vitamin C (i.e., supplemental vitamin C tablets).
Re:Can We Grow More Food on Less Land?
by Scoundreller on Friday December 07, 2018 @03:48PM
(#18631466)
But itβs easy to produce, consume and absorb enough vitamin C.
Vitamin C also breaks down fairly easily when cooked (necessary or common with a lot of foods).
Iron is a bigger issue where non-absorption of non-organic sources can cause some GI upset.