Hear me out. There's nothing innate to an object that makes it "food". It's an attribute we give to certain things that meet certain qualities, i.e. being digestible, nutritious, perhaps tasty or satisfying in some way, etc. We could really ingest just about anything, but we call the stuff that's edible "food". Does that make it a social construct?
Sure there are some edge cases which you can argue the point in
isn't that kind of a big deal, though? either it's not socially constructed and you can't argue in edge cases, or it is socially constructed and you can. as for what you do with this conclusion, it really doesn't matter.......
until you start discussing social constructs with someone and you have to remember that even the concept of food is socially constructed. which should really comfort us and remind us that this means something can be a social construct and still real, meaningful, and important, but instead it seems everyone wants to freak out at the concept! even in this thread.