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?
Calcium carbonate, is the main ingredient in tums, and is the main component of limestone.
But limes are organic, so shouldn’t limestone also count as organic?
Baking soda is also an inorganic compound.
That our diet stems from mostly molecules described in organic chemistry can also be the direct result of the fact that there are vastly more molecules considered “organic”: about 19 million are known and the number is growing!
While for anorganic compounds, there are only about 100,000.
The separation into organic and inorganic chemistry is really only done to make it easier to talk about broader subjects in science. We need and use obviously a lot of compounds that aren’t carbon based large molecules.
In recent years, activated charcoal.
(Because many people apparently don’t know this: Don’t eat activated charcoal if you take any medication, it can render your medication ineffective)
Edit: Wait, I’m dumb, charcoal is very much carbon-based.
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.
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.
