Why I'm not a Doomer on food

[c1ue]

A lot of people beat the drum on how we're all going to starve to death because there isn't going to be enough food.

Soil depletion, phosphates, blah blah blah

While I'm probably one of the most negative posters on iTulip, I'm not a doomer on food.

Why?

The reality is that there is one step required to increase food supplies an unimaginable amount: cellulose breakdown.

Cellulose is a carbohydrate, and cellulose is the single most common organic compound on earth.

Humans cannot process it, but cellulose is exactly comprised of those sugars and simpler carbohydrates which we use as food.

In biofuels, cellulosic breakdown is the barrier which keeps biofuels from being really productive; this exact same cellulosic breakdown could as easily be used for food purposes.

Note this isn't cold fusion, hot fusion, curing cancer, or any other endeavor which is extremely difficult and unproven to date.

Ruminants of all sorts: cows, sheep, and what not are able to convert cellulose into food via symbiotic bacteria in their gut.

Fungi can break down cellulose.

Termites also employ symbiotic bacteria.

It can be done.

And if it needs to be - it will be done.

[jk]

Re: Why I'm not a Doomer on food

another, more purely economic, process will ameliorate food shortages. increased wealth in the developing world has meant increased meat consumption, and that consumes multiples of the underlying vegetal crops. as food prices rise, populations will move the other way along the same curve, releasing crops that would otherwise be used as animal feed.

[shiny!]

Re: Why I'm not a Doomer on food

another, more purely economic, process will ameliorate food shortages. increased wealth in the developing world has meant increased meat consumption, and that consumes multiples of the underlying vegetal crops. as food prices rise, populations will move the other way along the same curve, releasing crops that would otherwise be used as animal feed.

Cr*p! I don't wanna go back to being a vegetarian! Twenty-two years of a plant-based, heavy-on-the-soy diet wrecked my thyroid and my health. I only started getting better once I reintroduced red meat into my diet. I have a freezer full of grassfed, organic, humanely raised and slaughtered beef and I LIKE it!

[jk]

Re: Why I'm not a Doomer on food

Cr*p! I don't wanna go back to being a vegetarian! Twenty-two years of a plant-based, heavy-on-the-soy diet wrecked my thyroid and my health. I only started getting better once I reintroduced red meat into my diet. I have a freezer full of grassfed, organic, humanely raised and slaughtered beef and I LIKE it!

i'm with you, shiny! not that i was ever a vegetarian, but the more i've learned about nutrition, the more i've eaten cows and sheep [don't need to be as fussy with cows and sheep as other meat animals re grass fed as they are foregut fermenters, and the omega3/omega6 ratio isn't as bad as you might think]. anyway, i wasn't cheering for the process i described, only predicting it.

[aaron]

Re: Why I'm not a Doomer on food

I vote algae . It has protein as well.

But, yeah.. the future is sawdust and green shit from the ocean. According to the latest health memes... algae and plankton are good for you. You can buy them in pills. (yes, I bought some. They make me sick).

I just saw an old movie, Soylent Green --> It is a sci-fi movie from the 70's, set in the year 2022.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070723/

They make food in factories for the starving masses.

[Kadriana]

Re: Why I'm not a Doomer on food

I vote algae . It has protein as well.

But, yeah.. the future is sawdust and green shit from the ocean. According to the latest health memes... algae and plankton are good for you. You can buy them in pills. (yes, I bought some. They make me sick).

I just saw an old movie, Soylent Green --> It is a sci-fi movie from the 70's, set in the year 2022.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070723/

They make food in factories for the starving masses.

Mmmmm, sawdust and algae. That sounds yummy. Actually, a lot of food you buy in the store actually tastes like that. I've had some really bad apples lately that didn't taste too far from cardboard. Thank goodness our apples will be coming in soon.

I haven't seen Soylent Green in a while. Good movie.

[touchring]

Re: Why I'm not a Doomer on food

But, yeah.. the future is sawdust and green shit from the ocean. According to the latest health memes... algae and plankton are good for you. You can buy them in pills. (yes, I bought some. They make me sick).

Have you actually seen how the green shit is harvested?

[shiny!]

Re: Why I'm not a Doomer on food

i'm with you, shiny! not that i was ever a vegetarian, but the more i've learned about nutrition, the more i've eaten cows and sheep [don't need to be as fussy with cows and sheep as other meat animals re grass fed as they are foregut fermenters, and the omega3/omega6 ratio isn't as bad as you might think]. anyway, i wasn't cheering for the process i described, only predicting it.

I know you were only predicting it... wasn't ranting at you, just the prediction. Several times I've come across PETA types who insisted that we would all be healthier if we went vegetarian and lived on soy. I'd tell them, "been there, done that, got really, really sick." They'd just stare at me, dumfounded, and refuse to open their minds to the fact that different bodies require different diets. Vegetarianism is a religion to them. They believe in it with religious ferver. When it comes to choosing to save me or a cow, I choose me. They choose the cow.

Someone said, "Belief is the enemy of Truth". This is all I believe anymore.

[jk]

Re: Why I'm not a Doomer on food

Someone said, "Belief is the enemy of Truth". This is all I believe anymore.

my version is that enlightenment is a minimal axiomatic set.

[shiny!]

Re: Why I'm not a Doomer on food

my version is that enlightenment is a minimal axiomatic set.

Ahhh, you're way too smart for me. That's above my vocabulary grade.

[jk]

Re: Why I'm not a Doomer on food

Ahhh, you're way too smart for me. That's above my vocabulary grade.

somehow, i doubt that.

[Slimprofits]

Re: Why I'm not a Doomer on food

According to the latest health memes... algae and plankton are good for you. You can buy them in pills. (yes, I bought some. They make me sick).

I prefer food (mostly plants) to 'nutrients', thank you very much.

[shiny!]

Re: Why I'm not a Doomer on food

Spirulina is often touted for being rich in vitamin B12. But the B12 in spirulina is actually a B12 "analog". It occupies the body's B12 receptors but is not utilizable. Because the B12 analog is occupying the B12 receptors, it blocks the metabolization of real B12. Thus, consumption of spirulina by vegetarians can actually cause B12 deficiency.

Someone once gave me some blue-green algae from Klamath Lake. It made me so sick I thought I was going to die. They told me that I was "detoxing" and should keep taking it. No way. I think it was poisonous. http://www.tldp.com/issue/167/algae.html

[lektrode]

Re: Why I'm not a Doomer on food

Spirulina /.. blue-green algae from Klamath Lake. It made me so sick I thought I was going to die. They told me that I was "detoxing" and should keep taking it.....

its amazing how some of the 'believers' think, isnt it?

they seem to forget that 'processed' food (along with refrigeration) has allowed the biggest increase in living standards since the industrial age began - then there's the non-gmo'z who seem to think that hybridized crops are somehow as dangerous as radiation, from the sounds of their propaganda/hysteria

we just lost/had vandalized another 10acres of papaya out here, rumor has it the envirofacist/gmo-terrorists are behind it...
about 15acres a year ago = thousands and thousands of pounds of perfectly edible/tasty fruit destroyed - for what?

the luddites are on the warpath again...

[tacito]

Re: Why I'm not a Doomer on food

Cr*p! I don't wanna go back to being a vegetarian! Twenty-two years of a plant-based, heavy-on-the-soy diet wrecked my thyroid and my health. I only started getting better once I reintroduced red meat into my diet. I have a freezer full of grassfed, organic, humanely raised and slaughtered beef and I LIKE it!

Then you're eating processed cellulose the old way: the cow eats grass, you eat the cow.