[lit-ideas] Re: Alternative food sources
- From: Andy Amago <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 09:28:19 -0400 (GMT-04:00)
-----Original Message-----
From: John McCreery <mccreery@xxxxxxx>
Sent: Aug 29, 2004 11:46 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Alternative food sources
On 2004/08/30, at 12:39, JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx wrote:
> I think the vat-grown is too unnatural, too close to soylent green, too
> suspicious (how do I *know* what it is that I'm eating??). It would
> certainly
> creep me out. It's too close to the laboratory (neither the wild nor
> home) for me.
For an alternative view, I recall one of the characters in Bruce
Sterling's science fiction novel _Islands in the Net_, who refuses to
eat anything but chemically reconstituted petroleum. He argues that all
natural foods have evolved over millions of years to be poisonous to
predators--how could you possibly take the risk of eating that stuff.
A.A. While "poisonous" might a bit strong, there is science behind this
statement, even though the character in this novel has it backwards. His
statement that natural foods have evolved over millions of years to be
poisonous to predators is the theory as to why plant products are so cancer
inhibiting in the body. Plants have, in fact, evolved compounds over millennia
to disable predators. So he's right. When the plants are in the body, they
inhibit tumors, seen as foreign substances by the body (or so the theory goes).
Another theory is that, going now back to the very very beginning of the
origins of life, as microscopic animals began to create oxygen, they
simultaneously had to find a way to disable it, since oxygen is a highly
unstable, damaging element. Hence the simultaneous development of free radical
absorbers by plants to protect themselves from this lethal and at the same time
necessary atom. Thus plants, when eaten by animals, function as antioxidants
(anti oxygens) in the body. So eating plants is the very thing to do to
optimize health.
Petroleum is a hydrocarbon (strings of carbons and hydrogens). I would imagine
if it were chemically reconstituted in a science fiction work it could be a
carbohydrate (strings of carbons and hydrogens) or fat (also strings of carbons
and hydrogens) and edible. I imagine it would resemble white bread
(seriously).
Regarding growing animal flesh in vats, I had not heard that. However,
agriculture accounts for 50% of all pollution, mostly in the form of
fertilizers and pesticides. Fecal matter is a separate problem, as are the
E-coli and other infectious bacteria that result from slaughtering animals.
Growing flesh in vats could alleviate the first problem, since most
agricultural corn and soy is grown for food for livestock, and flesh grown in
vats would not create fecal matter. Ironically, meat is among the least
nourishing of foodstuffs, since it's mostly protein (fancy nitrogen-containing
molecules) with a few B vitamins and a smattering of other things. Plus meat
has all the problems associated with toxins being more concentrated at the top
of the food chains.
For Judy, as the Monsanto commercial says, without chemicals, life itself would
be impossible. Chemistry is just the written language of life.
Andy Amago
John
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