diets
Despite the fact that most of this culture is swept up and buried in massive cities, I sometimes forget the advantages to metropolitan life. So many lives come here, so many stories reach a landing place. So many objects change hands and wind up in junkheaps. Treasure mines, to the informally educated. There are old things here, not everything here is tabbed and marked and counted like on border planets. Its possible to scour the markets for things I didn't know I wanted, things no one else does want.
Its been some time since I had coin to spend. The requisites for this are a ship in good repair, a tank full of siphoned water, contacts selling cheap supplies, and a good job ahead of us. My pockets are considerably lighter, but new amenities fill the ship and a ragged old cookbook joins the small stack in my satchel. It is full of words I don't recognize and ingredients I've never heard of.
Its amazing how many of humanities problems can be solved with a simple change of diet. Keep a population well-fed, or atleast in general good nutrition, and their productivity bounds spaceward. In the decades before the Space Age began, food supplements because available almost everywhere, and the rest, everyone assumed, is history. Nutrient factories became some of the first built in the modern style; today anything the human body needs can be found in pill, gummy, shake, or bar form. It is tasteless and engineered to be full of vitamins, such that most times we don't know what we're swallowing. But it keeps us healthy. Even asteroid miners have clear skin and glossy hair. There hasn't been a famine since Africa, and even that was generations ago. It could happen, if we're not careful with shipping, or if the Frighties don't remember we need food, not just metal. I've seen Runners think they could live on coin alone. They tried, and failed, and died.
Most new planets, though, can barely sustain enough arable soil to keep crops enough to feed them, much less support livestock. Earth used to strain to keep fresh meat in all the markets, until everyone gave up on it. Meat is now for the very rich, the recently colonized, and the well-connected. I've eaten fresh meat only a handful of times. Truth be told it was...strange. Better than gummies, leastways. But there was something primal about it, something unheard of. Savagery, in some form. In this world of Running, savagery keeps us alive.
Feasting on flesh...what else has been lost in the pursuit of practicality?
Its been some time since I had coin to spend. The requisites for this are a ship in good repair, a tank full of siphoned water, contacts selling cheap supplies, and a good job ahead of us. My pockets are considerably lighter, but new amenities fill the ship and a ragged old cookbook joins the small stack in my satchel. It is full of words I don't recognize and ingredients I've never heard of.
Its amazing how many of humanities problems can be solved with a simple change of diet. Keep a population well-fed, or atleast in general good nutrition, and their productivity bounds spaceward. In the decades before the Space Age began, food supplements because available almost everywhere, and the rest, everyone assumed, is history. Nutrient factories became some of the first built in the modern style; today anything the human body needs can be found in pill, gummy, shake, or bar form. It is tasteless and engineered to be full of vitamins, such that most times we don't know what we're swallowing. But it keeps us healthy. Even asteroid miners have clear skin and glossy hair. There hasn't been a famine since Africa, and even that was generations ago. It could happen, if we're not careful with shipping, or if the Frighties don't remember we need food, not just metal. I've seen Runners think they could live on coin alone. They tried, and failed, and died.
Most new planets, though, can barely sustain enough arable soil to keep crops enough to feed them, much less support livestock. Earth used to strain to keep fresh meat in all the markets, until everyone gave up on it. Meat is now for the very rich, the recently colonized, and the well-connected. I've eaten fresh meat only a handful of times. Truth be told it was...strange. Better than gummies, leastways. But there was something primal about it, something unheard of. Savagery, in some form. In this world of Running, savagery keeps us alive.
Feasting on flesh...what else has been lost in the pursuit of practicality?
posted by Scout | 8:43 PM
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