2065 Food, What is with Soy? Options

[Demon_Bob]

I am trying to understand the reason why all food and drink in Shadowrun seems to be Soy-based.

Are Soy beans just that cheap and easy to grow?

Is there some Mega_Farming Corp that specializes in Soy?

If in Hong-Kong should this change to more of a rice-base?

What is the background on Soy supposed to be?

[John Campbell]

Because In Cyberpunk, Everyone Eats Soy.

As far as I can tell, that's the extent of the thought that went into it.

[The ubbergeek]

Not just soy, but things like mold extracts, planktons and krills, bref, anything cheap to make, who have many sues, and industrialise easily.

[Glorian]

Yes, basically, soybeans are cheap and easy to grow, are sturdy and can survive a great variety of climate changes, and a good source of protein and oil, especially compared to the amount of land you need for a cow. With soybean oil, all sorts of resins, plastics, paints, etc. can be made. There's an entry in the book Shadowtech if you want more details. I think Shadowtech mentions the Resource Rush causing a loss of 40% of arable land to landgrabs. There's even less because of toxins, pollution, etc. For a Hong Kong game, no reason to change it to rice. Asians consume just as much as soy as rice, and rice. Soymilk, tofu, soy sauce, etc. There's also gawd-awful natto. In fact, rice is difficult to cultivate in comparison and doesn't provide as much protein.

And yes, soy is a genre cliche in cyberpunk, for the above-mentioned reasons.

[JesterX]

Not only soy, but also Algea products.

The reason is that those crops are really easy/fast to grow, give them the taste that you want and they are great sources of proteins.

You can also make many things with soy (taken from Wikipedia) :

"Soybeans are also used in industrial products including oils, soap, cosmetics, resins, plastics, inks, crayons, solvents, and biodiesel. Soybeans are also used as fermenting stock to make a brand of vodka."

Beside, there is not many proteins in rice compared to the number of carbohydrates.

Rice, raw
Nutritional value per 100 g Energy 360 kcal 1510 kJ
Carbohydrates 79 g
Fat 0.6 g
Protein 7 g
Vitamin B6 0.15 mg 12% RDA
Water 13 g

However, the perfect human diet (varies from a country/source to another...) should consist of about 60% of carbohydrates, 25% lipids and only 15% of proteins.

For algae, it's said that there is enough under the sea to feed the actual human population for 100 years without even reseeding even once!

[Rock]

Most things for the poor are made of soy...and Soylent.

[Drraagh]

I've heard a few different options for food in Shadowrun. Yes, most talk about Soy for those pretty much up to, and including, Low Lifestyle.

I've heard some about Kibble, which is vat-grown yeast, is the dry food you feed to your dog or cat, but made to be at least somewhat edible for people, even coming with flavor packets like ramen noodles. It's full of preservaties to keep it from going bad so that they can be bought in bulk when people can afford it and use it.

Some people probably also look into gardening. Either by hydroponics, if you can afford the electricity, or just in window boxes and on the roof. This gives you a supply of herbs, vegetables or whatever it is that you plant for cheap though acid rains and such can be a problem, but what you do grow can also be sold or traded for things you need.

One thing I can also see surviving the resource wars would be MRE foods. They could be released by corps as a way to feed the masses cheaply, or there could be stockpiles of it in old manufacturing plants, same with Twinkies and other such stuff. ;P

Then, you get into the higher lifestyles. In Medium, you probably have most meals made by stuff a step up from soy, like vat-grown meat substitutes, like "I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Cow" Hamburgers or "No Name" Chicken Fingers, and maybe every now and then you can spluge on an actual meat meal. High lifestyle, you probably have your own meat that you cook yourself or restaurants that know you by name. And last, is Luxury, where your butler cooks up the me at for you. ;)

So, soy is a good nutritional option as people have pointed out, and it's cheap, so the masses, living in coffin motels, dumpsters, or one room apartments, probably eat it as a way to live. Some may not even know of any better. But, at least in my view of the world, there are a few other options for people at the lower levels for food sources. Heck, I'm almost thinking of rewarding my players with a live chicken after one run for the heck of it. It could be better than cash in some ways. Keep it and you have fresh food every day, whereas sell it and you can live like a king for a while, or you can cook it for one good meal.

[hobgoblin]

hmm, kibble. probably works ok as a cereal with water or soy-milk ;)

[Trax]

If you add water it makes it's own gravy.

[FanGirl]

[Calvin Hobbes]

Our first job was for free eats at a chinese revolutionary cuisine restaurant.

[Kremlin KOA]

[Drraagh]

As I posted in the Metahuman biology thread, I had a character who was allergic to meat (I never really took elves a biologically unable to eat meat, so I made it as an allergy). Player took it as a flaw, an in most cases, it never made much of an issue seeing as they regularly ate soy and alternatives, but there were times where they would be required to eat meat, such as a meeting with the Johnson where they gave you a steak dinner as a sign of 'loyalty', I suppose. Or another one where it was a tribe ritual to join as an member of their tribe to eat stuff sort of like survivor.

So the chicken was another one of those sort of issues. Player can't really refuse the chicken if they want some payment for the run, but if they do take it, what are they going to do with it? I tend to like paying my runners in things other than cash, because it gives me opprotunies to develop events around. Say your fixer just got an item that they weren't sure exactly what it was, like the program the Finn had gotten in 'Burning Chrome'. It's just a matter of how you arrange it, I suppose.

Though, if you don't give out cash, it can get hard to give the rewards as well because the players don't want to lose money, so it's a mixed bag usually. Sometimes it's a side-quest trigger, other times it a red herring and other times its a one shot item like the Math Grenades from 'Pattern REcognition' or perhaps a 2nd Edition manuscript of Shakespear's plays.

[SL James]

[PBTHHHHT]

[SL James]

The History Channel?

[PBTHHHHT]

They had a special on Portland and it's infamous tunnels that people would use to 'shanghai' folks. They even talked about some of the conditions on the sailing ships for folks who were 'shanghai'd. Whenever the ship had trouble with provisions they'd be one of the first on the menu when the captain would say there'd be long pig for dinner tonight. Yummy.

[Demonseed Elite]

[SL James]

Ah, yes. NatVat.

Anyway, PBTHHHHT, I was just thinking generally. It seems the wealthy would be the most likely to afford such a delicacy given the cost-prohibitive nature of raising long pig that didn't eat crap and live in its own filth in a disease-ridden, poor blah blah blah lifestyle. Whereas when you're making soylent... Who the fuck cares where the bodies came from? One is actually eating human, and the other is eating something that ate dead human bodies.

It is literally the difference between organic, free-range human or elf raised on a corporate compound to be meaty and tender vs. ... ick ... bacteria that ate SINless guttertrash trog you can find anywhere.

[PBTHHHHT]

Well James, when you say Longpig, that's what I got the terminology from. You asked, I delivered.

Free range meat... hmmm... how about 'hunting expeditions'? Where corporate execs can go on 'safaris' to bag some good long pig for the buffet. In that case, well, adds the whole dimension of the most dangerous game into the factor also. Potential run/adventure?

[bclements]

I think SoA had something like that. Wealthy people eating teh Long Pig just because they could. I'll look up the page reference here in a bit.

[SL James]

Well, I'm using the term as it was used in Transmet.

Anyway, I must say the idea does intrigue me. After all, human life really isn't worth much if anything in Shadowrun alive (even forced breeding is pretty damn slow compared to cloning). So why wouldn't there be a market for human by the kilo?

[Drraagh]

I know this is a dead horse, but me and my friends were talking about this. I wonder what sort of labels you'll see on foods in SR. Perhaps 'Warning: This products may contain traces of meat', if you believes elves can't eat meat. Or what about food made from old newspaper pulp, "Warning: This product may contain traces of Peanuts Characters."

I decided to use part of it as my signature, but figured it'd be interesting to add for a bit of humor in your games.

[hyzmarca]

[PBTHHHHT]