What food would you bring into space?

[Rossum]

Here's a little thing I've been thinking about after watching the Firefly series.

Suppose a planetary mining company was going to set up a mining colony somewhere on a distant planet somewhere and they asked you to choose the food that the people would be eating there. The planets gravity is earth-like, its atmosphere is toxic, and the colony has the capacity to expand itself fairly steadily by fabricating new buildings from local on-site materials (the main limit is space on the shuttle). Its about a 3-year gap between ships arriving to the colony so people will be eating the same stuff for three years at a time. This is the first shuttle, the second will be carrying more equipment and personnel. You can send a request for more stuff back with the second shuttle and expect something back with the third. So whatever you choose now will determine what the colonists will be eating for the next six years at least.

Due to size/weight/cost etc limitations you can choose from the following supplies:

1. About two tons of cargo space - fill this with food supplies of whatever type you want. Usually stuff like wine, delicacies, or things you can't easily synthesize at the colony. The other components don't count towards this weight limit.

2. One Mineral Food Reclaimer - This basically purifies any mineral-based nutrients or Condiments a person cold need... salt, iodine, calcium tablets... plug it into colonies waste reclaimer system and you pretty much never run out of minerals. This can be constructed at the colony.

3. One Nutri-Gruel synthesizer - Your standard high-protein high-nutrient flavorless stuff. Uses protein synthesizers and modified yeast cultures to make pretty much all the proteins and nutrients a human needs to survive. Can be distributed in an oatmeal like form, a bar form, or any other stuff you care to make it as. Can be eaten fresh or preserved as emergency rations for later. Is intentionally made to be utterly flavorless (if you detect any flavor in the gruel before you add artificial flavorings to it then immediately run maintenance on the synthesizer). This can be constructed at the colony and spare parts are easily manufactured.

4. Ten Condiment Synthesizers - Similar tech to the one that makes Nutri-Gruel except this basically makes the Condiments and flavoring to add to it. Choose any substance such as ketchup, alcohol, butter, coffee, chocolate powder, sugar, honey, or what-have-you and these things will churn out a steady supply of stuff that is a passable knock-off of it. The stuff produced by these are designed to be "healthy and nutritious" so if the colony suffers a major disaster and everything gets broken except the ketchup maker... well, the colonists should be able to survive for months off of nutrient-rich ketchup without any major long-term damage. The same goes for the alcohol and coffee makers which both means that constant overuse of those things won't cause much damage... but then again they aren't as fun as the real stuff. This can be constructed at the colony and spare parts are easily manufactured. Built-in sensors let you diagnose them for problems.

5. Five fruit or vegetable plants - You can get some automated aeroponics gardens designed to grow the plants or vegetables for food (or real coffee... or drugs... if its a plant of any kind you can totally bring it on board). Spare parts are easy to make and the system can be extended almost indefinitely until you've got huge gardens growing fresh fruit and veggies year round. Main limitation is how much space and manhours you want to invest in growing these. Fresh fruit or vegetables are universally considered better and tastier than synthesized stuff.

6. One animal species and accompanying cloning system - Due to the Earth Ecosystem Expansion bill of 2173, all long-term colonies on other planets get reimbursed for bringing along at least one terrestrial animal species and raising them in the colonies. Basically, you get a cloning tank, a collection of frozen animal stem cells, and a set-up that lets you feed and care for the animals cloned. The tank can either be used to clone whole animals (produced either as baby animals or kept in there until they are more mature) or to clone parts of them like organs or steak (cloned steak is generally seen as inferior to butchering it from a complete animal, but you can keep churning out steak from a cloning tank as long as you want). Each animal comes with a synthesizer that produces feed suitable for it (be it carnivorous, herbivorous, or omnivorous).

The animals can be land animals or aquatic or any real size. The various components to feed and care for it can also be manufactured at the colony except for the cloning tank. The cloning tank is an extremely valuable (and expensive) piece of equipment and in an emergency (read: whenever you feel like it) can be moved to the colony hospital to provide medical help for humans. Smaller tanks can be used to clone human organs, tissue, or bone marrow... while tanks designed for larger species can be used to heal an entire adult human (kind of like the Bacta tanks in Star Wars).

The only limitation with the 'get a human-sized cloning tank dirt cheap' thing is that the legislation that allows for that requires the company to choose a large and endangered (or extinct) species as the chosen species and have to produce at least two live animals (one of each gender) and keep them "in an acceptable environment". You must verify that these two or more specimens exist by having someone take their vital measurements on a weekly basis and take five-minute video tapes of them twice a year to send back to Earth Ecosystem Expansion Agency. There is really nothing stopping you from keeping them in induced comas most of the time... the EEEA just wants to make sure that there are animals out there that could conceivably be used to repopulate their species if the Earth were to be destroyed by aliens or something. If you produce more than two, you are technically entitled to butcher them for meat... but its probably much more viable to clone tissue from them if you really need steak.

7. The medical supplies - If all else fails, the hospital synthesizer can produce pure vitamins and stuff to keep everyone alive. 'chemistry-set coffee' is a mix of synthesized caffeine and flavorings that is relatively common for space travelers who have no other source for their fix.
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So, basic question:


What ten foods would you choose to have synthesizers for? (can include coffee, milk, honey, eggs, alcohol, or whatever)
What five plant species would you bring with to grow on-site?
What one animal species would you bring to clone? (Either choose a small animal of any type that comes with a small cloning tank you can use to clone human organs, or choose a large endangered or extinct animal that comes with a human-sized cloning tank.)
After that, what would you put in the two tons of cargo space set away for food and drink?

[JGregory32]

What ten foods would you choose to have synthesizers for? (can include coffee, milk, honey, eggs, alcohol, or whatever)

Ohh,boy this is going to get debatable. First THOU SHALT HAVE COFFEE! Second THOU SHALT HAVE MILK! Coffee is a necessary hand down. Milk while not as essential is good for calcium and works to settle stomachs from too much coffee.
Third: Ketchup, as Dilbert has taught us enough ketchup makes anything edible.
Fourth: Hot Sauce, for when ketchup just isn't enough.
Fifth: Chocolate, good as a dessert and for that time of the month when the bases entire female population gets cranky. Yes, the entire female population is going to get cranky around the same time, studies have shown that groups of women will have their periods at the same time. Deal with it.
Sixth: Vanilla, acts as a counterpart to the chocolate
Honey: Do I really need to defend this one?
Eighth:Strawberry, because at some point you just want SOMETHING to taste like fruit
Nineth: Orange, see Strawberry
Tenth: Beer, cause otherwise people are going to be building stills within two weeks.

What five plant species would you bring with to grow on-site?

One:Garlic, essential to flavoring and acts to thin the blood without obivous side effects
Two: Rosemary, possibly the most useful herb ever discovered
Three: Dwarf Apple Trees, your going to need some real fruit in the diet
Four: Tomatoes, again essential for the diet
Five: Grain, the amount of things you can do with grain is simply mind boggling.

What one animal species would you bring to clone? (Either choose a small animal of any type that comes with a small cloning tank you can use to clone human organs, or choose a large endangered or extinct animal that comes with a human-sized cloning tank.)

Considering usable space, likely hood of something going wrong, and the ick factor I'm going to go with chickens. They provide eggs which are high in protein, they have a short life cycle, and as taught to us by the Matrix, chicken can taste like anything.

what would you put in the two tons of cargo space set away for food and drink?

You do realize that two tons is not much for six years? First thing is as many freeze dried spices as I can get my hands on. Isolated as the group is going to be, variety in the diet will be a MAJOR morale booster. A small stash of luxury goods such as spirits, Belgium chocolate, and other fancy foods to be used to celebrate the reaching of certain goals.
I would also include a large amount of basic staples, like rice, flour, oatmeal, etc. While some of it can come from the growing of grain having a ready supply to offset the crop will be important.
Also a variety of teas would be handy, they compact easily, can be vacuum sealed for long shelf life and take up little room or weight.

Really can't think of much else. Anybody else wanna have a go?

[Broomstick]

I agree with the chickens as the animals to bring. You'll want a breed that is good for both eggs and meat, though. That would probably be an heirloom variety, as modern factory-farm breeds are overspecialized.

The five vegetable foods:
1) The potato - a lot of nutrition in a compact space, and a very versatile food stuff.
2) Greens of some sort - I'd vote for swiss chard or bok choy, as the stems provide a slightly different texture than the leaves for variety.
3) Apples - again, most people like them. If you're smart, you'll take dwarf trees with grafts from different varieties of apples.
4) Wheat - this assumes sufficient space to grow usable amounts and means to grind it.
5) Soybeans - protein, versatile (edamame, soy milk, tofu, soynuts, oil, etc.) , and soybeans + wheat = soy sauce, for an eleventh condiment

The ten condiments:
1) Sugar
2) Pepper
3) Garlic
4) Ginger
5) Cinnamon
6) Mint
7) Chocolate
8) Vanilla
9) Ketchup
10) Mustard

Most of the rest of that two tons of supplies would be coffee and tea - which isn't really that much for six years and multiple people. There could be some of this devoted to other condiments for variety, but they'd have to be special occasion things, or maybe a canned ham or some other preserved meat, again, for special occasions.

This is assuming all necessary minerals and vitamins will be added to the diet as needed. Also, I'm assuming some source of fats/oils as I don't think the chickens will really supply enough. Perhaps there will be a mechanism for extracting oil from the soybeans.

Alcohol is not a problem - the nutri-gruel system has yeast, and with that and the potatoes/wheat/apples you have all you need to create various alcoholic beverages.

[Raxmei]

Got pretty far into thinking this through before I noticed that you didn't really need the plants for nutrition. That allows you to kick out the less exciting staples like rice and beans. Not even bothering to fill up all the slots, just throwing out ideas.

Peas - They're a vegetable and a pulse. Versatile and simple to prepare, nutritious and reasonably tasty.
Avocado? Fruit with an unusually high fat content and savory flavor. Or would it be better to just put guacamole on the condiment list?


Condiment candidates (some of these are dubious)
Butter (a cooking fat and a flavoring)
Cheese product
Chili pepper
Vinegar
Jelly
Marinara sauce

[eion]

You can send a request for more stuff back with the second shuttle and expect something back with the third. So whatever you choose now will determine what the colonists will be eating for the next six years at least.

Or we could just radio the request back the old fashioned way before the second shuttle even launches. No sane launch schedule for a distance of this length would wait for the earthbound flight to return before launching another one, so the third shuttle would have already departed from Earth when the second is arriving at our colony.

[Iosef Cross]

Got pretty far into thinking this through before I noticed that you didn't really need the plants for nutrition. That allows you to kick out the less exciting staples like rice and beans.

You mean to live off of fruits and animal products? That's not healthy. I may be possible to live without it, but in the long run, the people in the colony would become fat.

Bring rice, potatoes, wheat, beans and barley. All the rest is only complementary.

[eion]

Got pretty far into thinking this through before I noticed that you didn't really need the plants for nutrition. That allows you to kick out the less exciting staples like rice and beans.

You mean to live off of fruits and animal products? That's not healthy. I may be possible to live without it, but in the long run, the people in the colony would become fat.

Bring rice, potatoes, wheat, beans and barley. All the rest is only complementary.

And apparently you didn't read the entire OP either since it stated that you would have

2. One Mineral Food Reclaimer - This basically purifies any mineral-based nutrients or Condiments a person cold need... salt, iodine, calcium tablets... plug it into colonies waste reclaimer system and you pretty much never run out of minerals. This can be constructed at the colony.

And

3. One Nutri-Gruel synthesizer - Your standard high-protein high-nutrient flavorless stuff. Uses protein synthesizers and modified yeast cultures to make pretty much all the proteins and nutrients a human needs to survive. Can be distributed in an oatmeal like form, a bar form, or any other stuff you care to make it as. Can be eaten fresh or preserved as emergency rations for later. Is intentionally made to be utterly flavorless (if you detect any flavor in the gruel before you add artificial flavorings to it then immediately run maintenance on the synthesizer). This can be constructed at the colony and spare parts are easily manufactured.

In other words you've been given the painting, now you must decide what kind of frame to put it in.

[Iosef Cross]

Well, I that case some people chose to bring only "fast food" style food, and would satisfy their basic needs with that matrix style stuff...

For the 5 vegetable foods: I would still bring rice, wheat, potatoes and beans, with are good, but not barley. The only fruit is banana. These for the 5 varieties of things grown in the colony. The other kinds of fruits are less important, and people will only consume small quantities.

The condiments:
Sugar
Pepper
Mustard
Vinegar
the other 6 can be randomly chosen, is I don't consume anything else