It's pretty funny that you call someone 'mindless' when you make a statement that is outright wrong and shows that you don't understand the most basic concepts of plant biology and chemistry.
Nutrients are any chemical or compound that an organism uses to live. That's right, nutrients are chemicals. Did you know that compounds are made of chemicals?
Plants only require 16 or 17 chemical nutrients to produce everything they need to live. Plants in soils can absorb other chemicals that are similar to the chemicals they are attempting to obtain. Now if the soil doesn't contain any one of the 16-17 nutrients required to live, they obviously can't live. Now here is how you get the nutrients you need as a human - the plant synthesizes them. I'm sure you want some of that healthy arsenic and lead that plants can absorb but don't need.
Do you believe that all hydroponic and aeroponic produce has no nutrition compared to field grown crops? Do you have any evidence to back this up? And I want you to explain how the soil is supposed to retain nutrients when you harvest crops which contain nutrients which originated in the soil and bring them elsewhere. Does some kind of magic occur that automatically replenishes the soil's nutrients that you removed via harvest?
Modern crops contain less phytonutrients because they are bred to produce more sugar for sweetness, more starch per plant etc. which creates better tasting and more productive plants. But since this has been happening for over 10,000 years, you'd have to go back to the wild and believe me, you won't get much out of those crops and they will taste horrible.
Want to eat some wild corn?