But given above article about declining nutritional values and the availability of more efficient ways to avoid deficits (supplements, soylent variants) it can indeed be questioned why we are wasting so much time, resources and energy globally on what is essentially a pretty bag of water nowadays.
Additionally, cooking at home (which I did for years), including produce shopping, cutting, preparing, cleaning the waste is a huge investment of time, money and energy. If it doesn’t even lead to better health because you are essentially transforming bags of water into other forms it should probably not be considered more essential than other time consuming hobbies.
After including a soylent variant in my diet I somehow started only buying fruits and vegetables that I’m sure have some nutritional value (i.e. garlic or avocado but no more lettuce or oranges). Otherwise I mostly get them im restaurants, but rather for foodie reasons.