[Magic] How much food can the Blossom spell produce?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Varyon

There's at least one, but the prions are likely to eventually build up and get you. Of course, eating long pork tends to be on the deep end of the alignment pool.

The trouble with relying on that food is that 60-odd pounds of meat will only keep a human metabolism going for a month or two. Over the course of a year the population will crash. You want to eat food from a trophic level lower than your own.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by whswhs

The trouble with relying on that food is that 60-odd pounds of meat will only keep a human metabolism going for a month or two. Over the course of a year the population will crash. You want to eat food from a trophic level lower than your own.

But if you're using magic to produce it, that might not apply.

[Tyneras]

I have my doubts about long pork being nutritionally complete. Vitamin C immediately jumps to mind, plus those nutrients needed to run metabolic processes aren't stored 1:1 in the meat. But I only have my gut on this one, I can't find any handy nutrition fact sheet, understandably.

Back to the original question, Blossom indicates the tree gives it's entire harvest, then enters it's post-harvest "fall" phase. Without additional support, this would seem to indicate that it doesn't produce extra food, but does let one manipulate timing, since the tree presumably wouldn't produce again until it catches up with the next cycle.

This would actually be very handy, since it would allow you to avoid spoilage. Having had fruit trees, I can tell you the harvest gets overwhelming when it reaches it's peak and you cannot eat them as fast as they ripen. Being able to make an orchard magically spread out it's harvest would dramatically reduce waste.

Now, Rejuvinate Plant looks like it might let you get the plant back into fruiting shape after casting Blossom on it.

A "magical industrial" greenhouse where the trees are in a constant cycle of Bless Plants, Blossom and Rejuvinate Plant would produce quite a lot of food.

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by Tyneras

I have my doubts about long pork being nutritionally complete. Vitamin C immediately jumps to mind, plus those nutrients needed to run metabolic processes aren't stored 1:1 in the meat. But I only have my gut on this one, I can't find any handy nutrition fact sheet, understandably.

Back to the original question, Blossom indicates the tree gives it's entire harvest, then enters it's post-harvest "fall" phase. Without additional support, this would seem to indicate that it doesn't produce extra food, but does let one manipulate timing, since the tree presumably wouldn't produce again until it catches up with the next cycle.

This would actually be very handy, since it would allow you to avoid spoilage. Having had fruit trees, I can tell you the harvest gets overwhelming when it reaches it's peak and you cannot eat them as fast as they ripen. Being able to make an orchard magically spread out it's harvest would dramatically reduce waste.

Now, Rejuvinate Plant looks like it might let you get the plant back into fruiting shape after casting Blossom on it.

There's an interpretive question about Blossom here—it doesn't say entering the "fall phase" prevents Blossom from working the next day. For all the spell text says AFAICT you could cast it in the dead of winter and it would still work.

There's also a question of what exactly "fruit" is for the purposes of this spell. Does it only cover "culinary fruits", or does it cover nuts? Could it even cover mushrooms—at least if you use a fungus-related variant (something hinted at in Plant Spells)? After all a diet of mushrooms is very traditional for underground-dwellers.

[Tyneras]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

There's an interpretive question about Blossom here—it doesn't say entering the "fall phase" prevents Blossom from working the next day. For all the spell text says AFAICT you could cast it in the dead of winter and it would still work.

There's also a question of what exactly "fruit" is for the purposes of this spell. Does it only cover "culinary fruits", or does it cover nuts? Could it even cover mushrooms—at least if you use a fungus-related variant (something hinted at in Plant Spells)? After all a diet of mushrooms is very traditional for underground-dwellers.

A good point, the text frequently lists fruits and nuts separately, but as you point out there's a difference in the culinary and botany definitions. Exploding Vegetable includes (culinary) fruits and vegetables but not nuts in it's example. But nuts are included in the category of crop.

Personally, I'm inclined to think Blossom works on anything that has end of life/cycle seed form. So I'd let it work on everything from fruit trees to grass to nuts but not fungus because those seem be a category all their own, given the Fungus Spells box (p17)

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by whswhs

The trouble with relying on that food is that 60-odd pounds of meat will only keep a human metabolism going for a month or two. Over the course of a year the population will crash. You want to eat food from a trophic level lower than your own.

Yeah, it's really only "feasible" if you have nearby communities that generate and consume more typical food, from which you can harvest the needed long pork - typically via warfare. Hence why I said it tends toward the deep end of the alignment pool (Evil).

Originally Posted by Tyneras

I have my doubts about long pork being nutritionally complete. Vitamin C immediately jumps to mind, plus those nutrients needed to run metabolic processes aren't stored 1:1 in the meat. But I only have my gut on this one, I can't find any handy nutrition fact sheet, understandably.

It may require processing to get everything needed out, like grinding up bones into edible bonemeal, but so long as the long pig wasn't malnourished at the time of slaughter, I would think everything would be present - and in the right proportions to boot. But this is a tangent here, so I'll desist.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Inky

Of course, since they have magic they could always solve that problem by magic, but they'd first have to know what was wrong.

I don't know how you'd get round that.

I think Essential Food would supply missing vitamins. It's more expensive in magician-hours, but a weekly meal of it could solve a lot of problems.

[William]

Originally Posted by johndallman

I think Essential Food would supply missing vitamins. It's more expensive in magician-hours, but a weekly meal of it could solve a lot of problems.

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.

I certainly agree that variety in general is going to be not only useful nutritionally but also psychologically. For the other end of that scale, one person's daily nutrition requirements are satisfied perfectly by Monk's Banquet and a professional could "feed" several people that way, but of course this method lacks a certain satisfaction...

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.

[Varyon]

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.

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.

[Anders]

Should there be similar spells in the Animal college? Making an animal produce milk, or egg, or go into heat? What does the Hair Growth do when cast on a sheep or goat? Or a silkworm?