The word 'artificial' is, well, basically bullshit. There's no such thing as 'artificial' (or 'natural'). It all boils down to molecules and atoms, in the end.

What matters is (lack of) toxicity, harmful, LD50, food safety. 'Artificial' however does not and should not imply any of that.

As for

> Is it only me or is this whole preprocessed food stuff the most American thing ever?

I wouldn't say so. There's innovation regarding this throughout the world.

On top of that, cutting down on meat saves the environment. Is saving the environment an American thing...?

I'd wager that fast food is mostly an American invention, but it got picked up throughout the rest of the world. Like preprocessed food it isn't good or bad per definition.

The difference between natural and artificial is the difference between substances we've been exposed to, and thus evolved to deal with, for millions of years, and ones which are completely new to us, and we are essentially beta-testing on our bodies.

Of course, the official meaning of the world "natural", as it relates to the list of ingredients on a package, has been diluted to be meaningless, as you say.

> Of course, the official meaning of the world "natural", as it relates to the list of ingredients on a package, has been diluted to be meaningless, as you say.

It's been restricted to be meaningless, IMO. If we go by your definition of artificial, then a lot of what doesn't qualify as "natural" on food labels isn't artificial either. Many "chemicals" added to food are substances that we've evolved to deal with. GMOs in particular aren't artificial by this definition, as they're mostly about making some food contain stuff that was previously found in other food.

Basically, everything man-made which did not previously exist in nature is artificial. As for naturally occuring substances, everything that is synthesized is artificial as well.

> Why would you replace a meal made out of plants with basically the same plants run through a blender and their ingredients extracted by some odd process?

Convenience. I use my blender twice a day. I need 3000 calories a day to maintain a BMI of 22 and to get that from all plants would be lots of work. I’ve eaten 2000 calories of lentils in a day - not pretty.

> Why would you replace a meal made out of plants with basically the same plants run through a blender and their ingredients extracted by some odd process?

Doesn’t that basically apply to any sort of cooking process at all? It’s all an artificial transformation of food.

Artifical products are not bad in general. Everything we eat is chemical, the only difference is that somethings are created over a thousand years and some things are done in a few months/years in a lab. Extracting ingredients and creating new flavors or products is not a bad idea, especially if you can replace a hard to make product(meat). Of course, there should and will be testing if it is for safe consumption.

> Why would you replace a meal made out of plants with basically the same plants run through a blender and their ingredients extracted by some odd process?

Well I first heard of pea protein from vegan bodybuilders. Bodybuilders need extra protein. Protein without the carbs is useful. I think whey is probably a better idea, since it's been around long enough Galen recommends it for weak constitutions, but I'm not a vegan.

I have no idea what the "food industry" uses it for; presumably a replacement for soy meal, which really shouldn't be fed to people. Then again, pea protein soaked in glophosate probably shouldn't be either.

> yes those genetically modified plants are somewhat scary

I have a question about this. Aren't all vegetables that we eat now are 'genetically modified' by humans. There were no ancient tomatoes or ancient okra.

Is there implication that GMO's that were made in lab are more scary?

I think it's intellectually dishonest to compare artificial selection through selective breeding to genetic modification. You simply can't insert an anti-freeze gene from a fish into a tomato through artificial selection.

I don't even really have an issue with GMO, but I find the arguments promoting it are often conflating different issues which just seems to muddy the debate and in my opinion seems to create more distrust.

sorry it wasn't a gotcha point. I've heard ppl say that but I could never get a good answer what exactly makes 'genetic modification' more dangerous method vs 'breeding' method.

Mass production.