[spacechild1]

> For example a dead apple is one that was picked a year ago, sold today, kept in storage until now.

It has always been normal for certain fruits and vegetables, such as apples, pears, potatoes, etc. to be stored for months in a cellar. In the old days, you simple could not get a fresh apple outside harvest time.

Your concept of "dead food vs live food" seems rather questionable.

[pibaker]

Seconded. Every culture discovers ways to preserve food beyond their natural life. You ain't eating no fresh veggies in the winter of 1790. Everything you had was pickled. And you didn't get cancer because something will kill you before cancer did.

If anything the modern cold chain and globalized food supply and just the abundance of food in general means we have more access to fresh food than our ancestors even though they farmed and we mostly don't.