It seems to me that the relevant distinction between a boiled (chicken) egg and a Cadbury creme egg lies in its nutritional content -- grams of sugar, starch, fat, and protein -- rather than in the mechanism by which they are produced.
If chickens laid Cadbury creme eggs, they would still be just as unhealthy.
And yet a raw egg and a cooked egg have the same grams of protein, but different amounts of human-usable protein if eaten. Trans fat is associated with an increased risk for heart disease and the FDA says that it is no longer "generally recognised as safe". Two grams of trans fat vs two grams of other fat is "the same quantity of fat" but not the same effect on human health[1]. If we reduce the amount of sugar in a creme egg, so it has the same mass of fat and protein as a boiled egg, is it then equally healthy as a boiled egg?
The reduction of food to a quantity of sugar, starch, fat, and protein, is part of what I am objecting to; as if you could say that all products containing 20 grams of metal, 12 grams of plastic, and 2 grams of glass are the same product, or that all programs with 147k lines of code are the same program. "fat" isn't one thing. "sugar" isn't one thing. Fat and sugar are not the only classes of things in plants and animals.
The relevant distinction is all the things which are different, which is a lot more things than people casually talk about. Is it the quantity in grams of saturated vs unsaturated fat? Mono or polyunsaturated? Omega 3 quantity? Ratio of omega 3 to omega 6? Quantity of EPA, DHA or ALA fat overall, or ratio between them? Trace quantity of magnesium, or trace quantity of bio-available forms of magnesium in balance with an amount of medium chain triglycerides? And what about all the countless other potential distinctions with macronutrients and smaller trace compounds, each also denaturing in different ways over different time periods? Many words I don't understand, but understand enough to know that they describe differences which are measurable and worth naming.
There are enough potential distinctions which could be made, that saying "you can crush fresh almonds, extract the oil, put it in cookies, leave them in a box for a month, and as long as there is an equal quantity of oil in grams to the original almonds then they are exactly as healthy as eating the original fresh almonds" is very suspiciously simplified.
If we had an exhaustive list, or if we had a known complete understanding of the effects of all compounds in all combinations, it would be a lot more convincing. "It doesn't kill you, your body can survive on it for a bit longer" is not the same as "optimal thing to consume for optimal long term health".
> "rather than in the mechanism by which they are produced."
The things chickens lay must promote the growth of healthy chicks - if chickens laid creme eggs, we'd be in a world where creme eggs were healthy. But the use of 'healthy' as a boolean toggle property which food has or does not have, and which a behaviour is or is not, is something I grumble about as well.
If chickens laid Cadbury creme eggs, they would still be just as unhealthy.