Quote:
Originally Posted by William
I'd be worried that a meal's worth of it would only provide one (or three, or however much your ratio goes for) meal's worth of the vitamins, though, albeit in correct proportion. I.e., one could live on Essential Food indefinitely but would be deficient if it was only one meal a week and the rest of the diet was deficient in something.
|
While you probably won't be at peak condition, getting sufficient nutrition one day out of seven, with the other six simply having enough calories to keep you going, is probably sufficient to survive long-term. Health problems will crop up more readily - a character on such a diet will have a reduced lifespan, most likely.
Quote:
Originally Posted by William
Note that among the Plant spells is Body of Slime, which specifically mentions algae and slime mold -- this suggests that the GURPS default for "Plant" is broader than the scientific classification and the magic can reasonably encompass other "vegetable" lifeforms such as mold and fungi. That being the case, a scientific reader worrying about B12 in the diet could perhaps be assuaged by the inclusion of several yeasts and molds used for beer, bread, cheese and the like, with some specific yeasts or molds culturally noted as being important for a healthy local diet. Modern vegan B12 is commercially produced from bacterial cultures. The Mature spell could thus be useful to produce staples of this sort.
|
And, of course, humans consuming bacterial cultures as food is
certainly nothing new.