Why haven’t we created machine that produce food from water and sunlight like plants?

Question

Why haven’t we created machine that produce food from water and sunlight like plants?

In: Technology

Answer 1

Plants don’t produce food from water and sunlight. They require a variety of nutrients and such, plus CO2 and oxygen.

That aside, humans evolved to eat large and complex organic molecules. In fact, we evolved to eat the molecules produced by plants. A machine to produce these molecules would require a fair amount of energy and complex many-step chemistry. Why bother?