The End of Food

[dixiegrrrrl]

Has a tech entrepreneur come up with a product to replace our meals?

fascinating read, addressing the implications of climate change on food availability,
and the possible alternatives, wrapped around the story of a guy who invented a food replacement.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/05/12/140512fa_fact_widdicombe?currentPage=all

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. Wild indeed, but...

all of those ingredients that he gets in powdered form have to come from somewhere in the first place - there's still no 'free lunch'. Somebody out there is processing things to make them. And, for the squeamish, who knows what they're processing? I seem to recall that all of the euthanized strays in LA are rendered down into tallow. My guess is the reason it's cheaper to eat 'soylent' is that the sources of the non-mineral nutrients in the first place are parts of animals and plants that nobody is willing to pay for in their natural state, sort of like getting dog food with ingredients with the words 'by-product' or 'meal'.

But I like 'recreational meals' (possibly too much...) and I'd miss living in a world where I ate more interesting things, and instead lived on a 'shake' day in and day out.

[magical thyme]

2. he's just using food to create a generic pre-mixed, dried packaged food.

"In the formula that he and his teammates have settled on, the major food groups are all accounted for: the lipids come from canola oil; the carbohydrates from maltodextrin and oat flour; and the protein from rice. To that, they’ve added fish oil (for omega-3s; vegans can substitute flaxseed oil), and doses of various vitamins and minerals: magnesium, calcium, electrolytes. "

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. the title can be a bit mis-leading.

His target audience is people who either do not want to bother with shopping/cooking/eating
or
those who need a complete nutritional food due to medical or situational circumstances.

the thing I wondered about was ..what about fiber?
and phyto-nutrients.

Plus, are that really that many people who are not into cooking/eating real food?

I will say, when I had a severe attack of shingles, the mere act of preparing even a bowl of cereal was an agony.
I coulda used some of his brew for those 4 weeks.

[magical thyme]

4. I had jury duty when I had shingles

So on my way there, I grabbed my book "The Green Pharmacy" and while sitting around waiting, discovered I had many appropriate herbs and spices growing in my garden and sitting in my kitchen. So once jury duty was over, I brewed up a concoction to drink and to make a poultice. The shingles were on my torso so I wrapped myself in a horse bandage.

They were gone in less than a week (5 or 6 days). I just wish I had started as soon as the symptoms cropped up; I could have been rid of them in 3-4 days.

Yes, I noticed the lack of phytochemicals. The oat flour and rice will provide fiber. But those are incomplete proteins. Where is he getting the missing amino acids from? Wonder what his poops look like (job hazard is talk about poop).

[SoLeftIAmRight]

5. please tell me more

do you still have the book? What was in the mix?

[magical thyme]

6. sorry for late reply....I just saw this!

The book is "The Green Pharmacy" by James A. Duke, PhD.

For the herpes family:

mint family (esp. lemon balm, but also peppermint, spearmint, oregano, hyssop, rosemary, sage, thyme and self-heal)

For antiviral / anti-inflammatories in general:

licorice
passion flower
bergamot
purslane
some chinese herbs I'm not familiar with

For the pain:
red pepper (capsaicin blocks the nerve endings just under the skin)

I was growing everything listed above in the mint family, along with wild bergamot, and I had licorice tea and red pepper in my kitchen. So I used the licorice tea as a base and added fresh leaves from my garden.

I drank the tea throughout the day. Most important, I took the strainings from the tea, added some red pepper, and made a poultice of it. The shingles were on my abdomen and lower back, so I put the wet mixture onto large gauze pads and wrapped myself in them, then overwrapped with saran wrap to help hold everything in place, and then covered all of it with horse bandages (basically oversized ace bandages).

This not only put the medicinal compounds right where the action was, it protected the affected area from being triggered (every time anything touches just the slightest, it sets of a round of needles and general pain).

It was a bit messy, but within 4 days the rash had receded and the pins, needles and pain were gone. The hardest part was judging how much red pepper to add. If I got the amount just right it was *heavenly.* It warmed from the inside out and felt like a nice heating pad provided support. Then there was the day when I accidentally overshot the optimum. I cannot believe how hot it got -- I was ready to call the fire dept. to put me out! But it still was better than the needles.