Feeding ourselves with cellulose

It was a few years ago when I read that cellulose was just glucose bonded differently, and thus, we were all living in "gingerbread houses." It was a few months ago I learned of the miraculous technology of rayon, and theorized that the panda may be able to eat bamboo more efficiently using cellulase.

After researching about making a bunker to leave the urban industrial society (which refuses to grant me elite positions) once and for all in a Kaczynskian fashion, I realized the most efficient way of food production would be not producing at all, instead making a stockpile.

Starch has many problems, the least of which are the competing organisms that I do not want nearby. Using prior ideas of "encrypting" glucose so pests and other humans cannot access it, I decided to stockpile cellulose and corresponding cellulase to "decrypt" it into glucose again.

Cellulose has a gross energy density of ~20 MJ/kg at low efficiencies but can reach nearly 30 MJ/kg in the right conditions. Since the minimum human kcal consumption per day is 1500 kcal, 1 kg of cellulose can theoretically last me 3 days.

365 kg of paper is about 300 liters, so 300 liters of paper can last me about 3 years. It is then a trivial feat to stockpile conversion chemicals and enzymes, as well as 80 years' worth of cellulose in an airtight container to leave away from society for the rest of my life.

The other amino acids and micronutrients would also be stockpiled, but their volumes would be trivial. Salt is bulkier, but much easier to store than anything mentioned above. Even if cellulose to glucose conversion was say, only 10% efficiency, given enough trees I can envision a person feasibly living off the land until they pass away.





Given these calculations, why aren't people organizing to make a cellulose-based society where nobody has to toil just to eat and live? There is no need for "jobs" once food is provided by the forest, and housing in rural areas is practically free. I find the modern human endeavor of obsessing with "starch-enrichers" pathetic when Earth is practically a garden of Eden.





Cellulose had the great advantage of being everywhere, including upon the ubiquitous "weeds" of the fields or the fallen logs and branches of the forest. There is no need to cut down trees or wait seasons for their fruit/nuts, we merely need to use coppicing to harvest wood over and over without ever needing to disrupt the land.

Am I missing something? It seems very doable and yet I don't see anyone attempting this. It came to the point where I theorized that everyone who came upon this truth left the internet for good and was comfortably in their bunkers already.

Permaculture came very close to what I was envisioning (my ideas originate from them, in fact), but nobody there made the leap to eat the cellulose ourselves, instead of waiting for fruit forests or feeding cellulose to the fungi or cattle (inefficient middlemen who must be eliminated).

Let me know your thoughts on this.

Possibly because it sounds like a boring, bland, tasteless diet?

Thom Bri wrote:Possibly because it sounds like a boring, bland, tasteless diet?

It sure is, but I came to America to be a free man, not to be a wage slave. I am sure many others would choose freedom over bodily pleasures.

If you don't mind, what might I add to my vision to make it more appealing to people?

Thank you.

Ok, firstly moving from wood to cellulose is not simple. Your numbers are off as wood is not 100% cellulose, after a quick google let’s be generous and say that you can effectively get to 50% of the cellulose in your wood.

Secondly, how are you extracting your cellulose? Lignin is incredibly tough and is the part of wood that actually does all the structural stuff.

Thirdly, how much catalyst do you need along with how much cellulase?
You can’t just throw them together are expect it to convert stuff. How much energy (heat) do you need to start things off?

1500 calories is starvation diet, 3000 is closer to actual.

Now we are closer to 1200kg of DRY wood needed per year. When harvested this will be something like 1500kg to 2500kg. I guess you’d want to process the wood wet to minimise losses but that is a lot of heavy processing.

How much wood can you reliably get from your coppice?

Have you tried eating and surviving on pure glucose?

What’s it actually like getting all of the ‘trivial’ other vitamins and minerals that humans need?



I think you’re vastly underestimating the resources required and not really respecting the massively complex systems within our bodies that focus on extracting what we need from plant life.

James Alun wrote:Ok, firstly moving from wood to cellulose is not simple. Your numbers are off as wood is not 100% cellulose, after a quick google let’s be generous and say that you can effectively get to 50% of the cellulose in your wood.

Secondly, how are you extracting your cellulose? Lignin is incredibly tough and is the part of wood that actually does all the structural stuff.

Thirdly, how much catalyst do you need along with how much cellulase?
You can’t just throw them together are expect it to convert stuff. How much energy (heat) do you need to start things off?

1500 calories is starvation diet, 3000 is closer to actual.

Now we are closer to 1200kg of DRY wood needed per year. When harvested this will be something like 1500kg to 2500kg. I guess you’d want to process the wood wet to minimise losses but that is a lot of heavy processing.

How much wood can you reliably get from your coppice?

Have you tried eating and surviving on pure glucose?

What’s it actually like getting all of the ‘trivial’ other vitamins and minerals that humans need?



I think you’re vastly underestimating the resources required and not really respecting the massively complex systems within our bodies that focus on extracting what we need from plant life.

Those are all very fair points.

I think for the lignin, I have to use NaOCl2 or some other chemical compound used for paper manufacturing. But even then, NaOCl2 storage is relatively trivial since it's not going to be eaten by pests. NaOCl2  doesn't like heat, so it would be stored underground.

My favorite part about NaOCl2 is that I can make some myself if I have access to electricity and seawater. I am planning to go to the desert mainly because it will be so much easier to preserve everything and because of cheap land prices, but still. Perhaps I can make some from salt stockpiles.

I am a student at a university and this is one of my research topics, I am trying to use lasers or electrochemistry to somehow easily remove lignin and selectively remove the glucose-glucose bonds in the cellulose to free the glucose. I don't think it will be easy, but there are studies where microwaves are used to great success.

I think for the heat, I would use a solar oven or something similar if I go to the desert. If I end up in the woods, I can always burn stray logs I suppose. I have been looking into geothermal as well for the sheer universality of it, but I don't think it would be easy. One note is that the conversion of cellulose to glucose would likely generate heat similar to how homebrew produces heat. I might recirculate some of that waste heat instead of burning wood.

For the catalyst, I have not calculated yet. But the cellulase enzyme seems to work well for other scientists, such as YouTubers "NileRed" and "The Thought Emporium." I plan to make bioreactors to produce cellulase, but you are correct in your concerns. It will take a lot of cellulase and its production will take up a lot of glucose I get.

I don't have a coppice yet. But the fungi are struggling in my area, and thus, there are a lot of bare logs and branches lying around, I plan to use them. My focus would be on the stockpiles, as 1200 kg of drywood is trivial in terms of volume and I can easily stockpile 80 cubes of drywood for each year, especially in the desert if I get lots of land.

Eating pure sugar gets old fast, but it's better than this society. Much better. To quote Aerosmith, "Isn't that the way? Everybody's got the dues in life to pay." A full utopia seems unachievable, we must all make our own sacrifices. I am not a foodie.

I have a shelf of vitamins which take me 3 months to get through. It's a small shelf. Given my poor diet, I assume I get most of my good vitamins from them. Since many vitamins easily provide 100% DV of each vitamin per pill, I think vitamins and micronutrients should be easy to stockpile. I currently take Vitamins ABCD 100% DV using the pills on my shelf. Iron supplements are also common in vegan circles, so I can use that I suppose. "Ensure" supplemental drinks in powder form are a great example of how little micronutrients we need day to day.

As for the amino acids, that is where many of my issues arise. My issues as of now are amino acids, water sourcing, and fatty acid sourcing.

If I have access to the desert, I might get rabbits. It would cut into my cellulose stockpile, but it's well worth the protein. I also had the bizarre idea of processing stockpiled leather for its amino acids, but that sounds disgusting even to me. Tannins are the least of my problems in that scenario.

I wouldn't want rabbit starvation, so I need a way to store butter or something. I am looking into freeze-drying for now, but the solution for fatty acids seems elusive.

My greatest problem would be water sourcing, which is why I need a very good source of power. Solar panels and geothermal come to mind for now.

I am underestimating many aspects of the complexity, yes. But I wouldn't have asked this question if it seemed theoretically impossible. The only reason humans can't sustain off of grass and wood but fungi, cows, and pandas can is due to their enzymes in the gut microbiome. Think about that!

Fungi make some cellulase enzymes, but cows and pandas don't even make their own, they get it from their gut's bacteria, and they still maintain such massive bodies. It seems like a missed opportunity for humanity to me. I went to Shenandoah a week ago and many logs and branches were seen, barely decomposed and with little to no fungi. Imagine if we could sustain ourselves using that!

Even if the price is 10x my initial estimate, I think in the long term it will be much cheaper than participating in society or engaging in agriculture (think of the fertilizer and fuel costs!). Starch and sugar are just too costly to wait for every season when cellulose can be sourced year-round.

I also asked this because I was surprised nobody attempted this before. If we can make rayon out of cellulose, why not our food? It wouldn't be profitable, but it would be a good strategy for anyone making a budget bunker to leave society. In my opinion, the labor and resources needed for tilling the land, fertilizer, harvesting, are similar to what is needed for simple cellulose harvesting + its conversion to glucose.

Young Jun Lee wrote:... I realized the most efficient way of food production would be not producing at all, instead making a stockpile.

...The other amino acids and micronutrients would also be stockpiled, but their volumes would be trivial.

I have to admit that this idea doesn't appeal to me at all - it feels overly complicated and industrial, especially long term.

Have you come across the idea of edible forest gardens?

We have a forum here dedicated to forest gardens which in theory can supply all you need in terms of nutrition.

Cellulose had the great advantage of being everywhere, including upon the ubiquitous "weeds" of the fields or the fallen logs and branches of the forest. There is no need to cut down trees or wait seasons for their fruit/nuts, we merely need to use coppicing to harvest wood over and over without ever needing to disrupt the land.

Have you discovered lamb's quarters yet? No need for processing with that, and it grows literally as a weed all over the place. Plus it's delicious, and very nutritious.

In fact if you learn enough about all the trees and weeds that grow around you, and plant suitable ones along with them, you could probably eat as much as you want without ever using up your emergency cellulose stockpile. Many apples will store for months. Olives will keep for a year or two. Dehydrated fruits and vegetables keep for years. Nuts provide oil and protein as well as glucose. Some trees have leaves that edible, especially when they are young in the spring.

They have been doing cellulose food for years you just never knew they were doing it.

If you ever had a McDonalds shake you have been eating wood fiber, and it is nothing new.

I grew up on a dairy farm and the creamery we sold our milk too, figured out how to take milk and dehydrate it, and mixing it with cellulose were able to give milk a huge long shelf life. This appealed to McDonalds as they could have big boxes of milk shake mix last much longer for their franchises.  I learned about this in 1992 when I worked on the farm.

I am sure other companies also use this cellulose to make dairy products last much longer too. I know the creamery we sold our milk too, a Co-Op Creamery, patented their milk shake formula so it is NOT a McDonald's only thing.

When you read the Snopes fact checking it says that rumors about McDonalds shakes are false, but they are wrong. because the dairy product is an approved food ingredient. We can debate whether that is something that should be, or should not be, in the mix, but its fully considered a food product. Myself, i see no harm in mixing in some sawdust as a filler in dehydrated milk, but that is just me.

Another huge cellulose commodity we consume commercially is carageen. My cousin works at a giant factor here in Maine that produces that; its cellulose from seaweed and is in EVERYTHING we eat. Its what makes jello-jell up, and in literally everything... again, even in McDonalds milkshakes.

As a farmer I LOVE that factory because I could get the waste from that food plant and spread it on my farm fields. It acted as a lime, but also increased organic matter, and was literally me spreading tons of seaweed across acres of land for FREE.

But cellulose; we have been eating it for years. You just never knew it.

There is a difference between stock piling this way for a person or two in an emergency vs living and thriving this way, with a lot of people, for an indefinite period of time.

Our bodies need proteins, minerals, vitamins, and fats from outside sources. Our bodies need hardly any sugar, and our bodies can make the sugar it needs from protein. I think it is a really cool idea to store sugar in a form that things don't bother,  but I need to know more about where to get the protein, fats, minerals, etc. You talk about supplements, which are easy to get right now, but if the goal is to be self sustainable, we need a way to get those things long term regardless of whether those factories keep producing or not.

I think Burra has a good idea on how to do that. Forest gardens, foraging, normal gardens, etc. Your idea about hunting rabbits is good too. You can hunt or farm a lot of the things you need. You can grow and forage the rest. I'm just wondering if, by the time you have room to grow or forage all the plants, with systems setup for all the animals (hunted or farmed), whether you would need to deal with the cellulose at all?

I really appreciate this thread! I sometimes get down about my life as a wage-slave, but pointing this path out as the alternative has made that all go away. Working the daily grind sounds way better than hiding in a desert bunker eating wood goo while moving as little as possible to keep my calorie needs low.

The biggest problem I see, and it's the same thing I generally see when someone says something to the effect of "if only we'd do XYX then nobody would have to work", is that you're not accounting for all the other people that would have to work, in order to make XYZ happen, so that you don't have to work. For example.....you talked about using NaClO2 to make lignin....that requires people to work in industrial labs to make. You talked about making your own, using electricity.....someone is going to have to work, in order to make solar panels or whatever for you to produce electricity. You talked about eating supplements/vitamins.....again, those are made in some factory by wage slaves. Same with the solar panels you talked about to produce water.

Anything short of reverting to a hunter/gatherer society is going to require others to work for you, and they're going to need to be payed with some sort of exchange medium (money) for their wages.

It's a wonderful thought experiment, and like many thought experiments, I think most of the responses culminate in some version of "show me how it works". It sounds like you have at least some grasp of the science of how this would be possible, but we are all wondering about the practicalities of it. The nature of the processes required to make the conversion do not lend themselves well to an off-grid isolated bunker environment, and you mention stockpiling in the desert where land is cheap but that would require constant transport which is neither cheap nor sustainable and would require quite a budget - the budget being another question of project sustainability.

I love thought experiments, but they can only go so far before there needs to be a physical example - a test case. I would be very interested to follow updates about a prototyping of this concept, please if you feel strongly about the concept find out how you can begin the testing. Contact researchers that have already done cellulase procedure testing and float this idea by them, they would have the experience to tell you a lot more than us permies can about how you could move the project along. I just ask that you do keep us updated when you reach milestones.

I just wonder what is so horrible about work anyway?

For someone who had cancer and could not work meaningfully for four years, I appreciate being able to work now.

And there really is no “wage slave”. My stocks are doing well currently at 11% interest, but while that is above average for stocks my job is a lot better in terms of return on investment. I put $50 bucks worth of gas in my car at the start of the week and net myself $1200 from it by the end of it. That is a pay back of 2500%. You can’t get that kind of return doing anything else legally…

I think converting trees (or other cellulose matter) into sugars is a really interesting thought. Maybe, as others have said, for food, but how about a step on the way to biofuels? Could you make a permi-future with renewable bioethanol - crack that on a viable scale and the oil barons will hate you...





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It looks like there is a fair amount of research going on in that direction already.

It's a good thing for our young people to reach for the limits of what's possible as is our elder folk to ground us in what's sensible from their experience.

Let's eat the money.

It kind of is already being done. It’s called black liquor and while it takes a special recovery boiler to burn that fuel, it produces a lot of megawatts. The local one to me is some 12 stories tall.

Black liquor is created during the Kraft making
Process and back when the USA was given out carbon credits for producing biofuels, many paper companies were making good money on the biofuel designation by burning the alcohols coming out of their processed woods. Because of the tenbicality of biofuels producing so much power for the grid, it was one reason why they had to stop paying biofuel subsidies.

Incidentally the largest producer of this kind of energy does not come in tree form or corn, but cattails. Whereas corn can produce 400 gallons per acre, cattails gets a whopping 600 gallons per acre. Minnesota alone could produce enough fuel without using crop land to power itself and many states besides.

For me, it seems planting a big garden is far simpler, more satisfying, and certainly ends up with a product that is much better tasting to eat.  Burra mentioned food forests that can round out many of the missing nutrients and flavors.  Add some chickens and you have all areas of nutrition covered.  I think in this case, natural is much better than an overly complex method that allows me to eat wood.

I currently garden 7% of an acre, or 3000 square feet. It grew 230 Lbs. of corn, plus an unmeasured amount of beans, potatoes, and etc., producing half my calories. To cover all of my caloric needs for one year I would have to double my garden size. I spent about 90 hours working in this garden over the last year to get 1/2 my yearly calories. Mostly this is easy, light labor. I rated each day's labor low, moderate or high intensity. 15 days received a rating of moderate. All the rest I rated low. None were rated high. Gardening even without machines is easy.

Compare that to my 'wage slave' job. Acquiring the year's worth of calories would cost me about $120 for the corn and about the same for beans and potatoes. Plus whatever veggies and fruits I desire. I can easily eat all I need for <$500/year. So I need to work about 16 hours a year to produce similar food as a wage slave. This is for a rather boring diet, but still far superior to a diet of converted cellulose.

My point being, food is super cheap. Attempting to reduce your participation in the economy by extreme methods is unnecessary. A minimum wage worker need only work 33 hours to cover basic yearly food needs eating mainly grain and beans.

Wage slavery is mainly about other things. A car, a house, entertainment, a girlfriend, fashionable clothing, exotic foods. Social needs, in other words. Food in itself is so cheap in modern America as to be hardly an issue.

Burra Maluca wrote:
I have to admit that this idea doesn't appeal to me at all - it feels overly complicated and industrial, especially long term.

Have you come across the idea of edible forest gardens?

We have a forum here dedicated to forest gardens which in theory can supply all you need in terms of nutrition.

Have you discovered lamb's quarters yet? No need for processing with that, and it grows literally as a weed all over the place. Plus it's delicious, and very nutritious.

In fact if you learn enough about all the trees and weeds that grow around you, and plant suitable ones along with them, you could probably eat as much as you want without ever using up your emergency cellulose stockpile. Many apples will store for months. Olives will keep for a year or two. Dehydrated fruits and vegetables keep for years. Nuts provide oil and protein as well as glucose. Some trees have leaves that edible, especially when they are young in the spring.

You are very astute. I also struggled with embracing such artificial and industrial technologies, but I realized to make my desert or forest bunker in which I may rest for the next 80 years, I had to make large sacrifices on integrity.

Edible forest gardens are a nice concept with many proven implementations. However, I didn't like how it would take at least 3 years for me to get fruit from a new forest. Furthermore, land costs meant I was very likely to go to the desert, and you know how trees don't do well there. Individual Acacias, cacti, and shrubs maybe, but not in a way where it would become a fruit forest. I also disliked the risk of harvests, in which any incidents in the Fall would become disastrous.

Fundamentally, I see nature as a tyrannical force which aims to screw us over at every step. I don't see nature as a safe asset to devote my time and resources to, let alone society. Nature is about as reliable as the stock market, it will benefit you long term but it might also wipe away your life savings tomorrow.

I am intrigued with Lamb's Quarters. I see it has many amino acids and micronutrients, perhaps I can source proteins and vitamins from such "weeds" instead. Diversification is always a good strategy. But some stock of vitamin pills, I see as very important. You never know with nature.

Regarding Lamb's Quarters, I would increase its nutritional value by breaking down its cellulose into glucose using the processes mentioned above. Perhaps I can buy a lifetime's worth and store it like one would rice hay or tree hay.

The last one is a fair point. Perhaps cellulose should be used as insurance instead of a primary food source. But it is very intriguing to me because cellulose is such an underutilized resource. If we could eat cellulose, I bet we could defeat the coming famines and overpopulation concerns with no problem.

In addition, storage concerns are generally greater for starch/glucose than cellulose. A moth may eat my cotton clothes but leave many intact, while wheat berries will be ransacked by insects and vermin scum if you are not careful. But it is still a fair point. Perhaps in my envisioned future society, we can coppice fruit trees instead of oak or pines, and (freeze) dry them for storage without refrigeration.

Steve Zoma wrote:They have been doing cellulose food for years you just never knew they were doing it.

If you ever had a McDonalds shake you have been eating wood fiber, and it is nothing new.

I grew up on a dairy farm and the creamery we sold our milk too, figured out how to take milk and dehydrate it, and mixing it with cellulose were able to give milk a huge long shelf life. This appealed to McDonalds as they could have big boxes of milk shake mix last much longer for their franchises.  I learned about this in 1992 when I worked on the farm.

I am sure other companies also use this cellulose to make dairy products last much longer too. I know the creamery we sold our milk too, a Co-Op Creamery, patented their milk shake formula so it is NOT a McDonald's only thing.

When you read the Snopes fact checking it says that rumors about McDonalds shakes are false, but they are wrong. because the dairy product is an approved food ingredient. We can debate whether that is something that should be, or should not be, in the mix, but its fully considered a food product. Myself, i see no harm in mixing in some sawdust as a filler in dehydrated milk, but that is just me.

Another huge cellulose commodity we consume commercially is carageen. My cousin works at a giant factor here in Maine that produces that; its cellulose from seaweed and is in EVERYTHING we eat. Its what makes jello-jell up, and in literally everything... again, even in McDonalds milkshakes.

As a farmer I LOVE that factory because I could get the waste from that food plant and spread it on my farm fields. It acted as a lime, but also increased organic matter, and was literally me spreading tons of seaweed across acres of land for FREE.

But cellulose; we have been eating it for years. You just never knew it.

Interesting! This is the quality content I come to Permies for.

The cellulose, however, would have very little nutritional value inside our guts unless we had special gut microbiomes that produce cellulase enzymes.

That is why I am trying to pre-digest the cellulose outside of our guts using the cellulase enzyme and various other chemicals, so people can live solely off of cellulose and its derivatives. But it is fascinating to know there are already supply chains to distribute cellulose all over the country.

Thank you for your information.

Matt McSpadden wrote:There is a difference between stock piling this way for a person or two in an emergency vs living and thriving this way, with a lot of people, for an indefinite period of time.

Our bodies need proteins, minerals, vitamins, and fats from outside sources. Our bodies need hardly any sugar, and our bodies can make the sugar it needs from protein. I think it is a really cool idea to store sugar in a form that things don't bother,  but I need to know more about where to get the protein, fats, minerals, etc. You talk about supplements, which are easy to get right now, but if the goal is to be self sustainable, we need a way to get those things long term regardless of whether those factories keep producing or not.

I think Burra has a good idea on how to do that. Forest gardens, foraging, normal gardens, etc. Your idea about hunting rabbits is good too. You can hunt or farm a lot of the things you need. You can grow and forage the rest. I'm just wondering if, by the time you have room to grow or forage all the plants, with systems setup for all the animals (hunted or farmed), whether you would need to deal with the cellulose at all?

I am going to be honest with you, my initial idea was to merely create an exit plan for myself in case something big happened. My later inquiry came when I realized that cellulose processed into glucose could feasibly be a food source for an entire civilization.

Our bodies don't need sugar itself, but we feed ourselves lots of carbohydrates every day so our bodies can break it down into sugar we can use in our cells. Proteins are just another way of producing such sugars. But for the proteins, fats, and micronutrients, I am also lost. I do know that it can be easily stockpiled for very cheap, but how to source it myself without society? I do not know.

It is a valid criticism, and one which I must improve in the future, likely using Mr. Burra's suggestions as you mention. I would still go on with cellulose processing however, because I do not trust nature. It has hit my back before and I believe it will hit my back again.

Christopher Weeks wrote:I really appreciate this thread! I sometimes get down about my life as a wage-slave, but pointing this path out as the alternative has made that all go away. Working the daily grind sounds way better than hiding in a desert bunker eating wood goo while moving as little as possible to keep my calorie needs low.

LOL I love your humor!

But we all make our own sacrifices, and I would rather eat wood goo than keep investing in a society that can take all my progress overnight. On the plus side, if I move very little and eat very little I won't have to meet any doctors! An apple tree a day keeps the doctor away, I suppose.

James Bridger wrote:The biggest problem I see, and it's the same thing I generally see when someone says something to the effect of "if only we'd do XYX then nobody would have to work", is that you're not accounting for all the other people that would have to work, in order to make XYZ happen, so that you don't have to work. For example.....you talked about using NaClO2 to make lignin....that requires people to work in industrial labs to make. You talked about making your own, using electricity.....someone is going to have to work, in order to make solar panels or whatever for you to produce electricity. You talked about eating supplements/vitamins.....again, those are made in some factory by wage slaves. Same with the solar panels you talked about to produce water.

Anything short of reverting to a hunter/gatherer society is going to require others to work for you, and they're going to need to be payed with some sort of exchange medium (money) for their wages.

That is true... It is quite a contradiction in my vision.

I was counting on automation to take away many jobs, and humans merely serving as QC. But I suppose we can decentralize all the processes just like a hunter/gatherer society. NaOCl2 technically doesn't require industrial labs, such chemical processes can easily be made ourselves. There are many papers in fact, which show different ways of making many chemicals on a small scale.

Based on your information, I can see that people aren't making such cellulose societies yet because the threshold of simplicity for individuals to be able to self-produce many of our daily technologies hasn't been developed yet. I will make note of this going forward.

Steve Zoma wrote:I just wonder what is so horrible about work anyway?

For someone who had cancer and could not work meaningfully for four years, I appreciate being able to work now.

And there really is no “wage slave”. My stocks are doing well currently at 11% interest, but while that is above average for stocks my job is a lot better in terms of return on investment. I put $50 bucks worth of gas in my car at the start of the week and net myself $1200 from it by the end of it. That is a pay back of 2500%. You can’t get that kind of return doing anything else legally…

Many people are doing well in this economy. Many people also aren't. Recent events have shown me that America has a vast underclass who aren't protesting but are ready to revolt if given the chance.

Some people just don't like work, cars, public transportation, apartments, suburbs, junkies and rats and pigeons in the parks, the absurd density that makes you go insane, inept bureaucratic systems which put you in a Catch-22 for the low low price of your life savings, the high rents, idiotic and rude people who you want nothing to do with but have to tolerate under the current system, or the modern urban industrial society in general.

You couldn't pay me to participate in the current system. I am in the city because I am bound to it. The moment it is over I am leaving. This modern era and its useless trinkets do not interest me. I wanted power, but the elite positions were saturated and nobody was willing to give their positions.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that power and money are also shackles that keep you bound to the people you hate and the society that robs you. So it is in fact, much better to be alone than together. It is not the hunter/gatherer era, and straying from the tribe no longer means death.

Sometimes I fantasize about trading off plumbing, electricity, computers/smartphones, and modern medicine all for true freedom. How are any of those actually essential to happiness? Better to live 40 years as a free man than 80 years tied up. It's better to be the king of ashes than be a peasant in utopia.

I pay $1300 a month for a room smaller than a camper van with a bathroom I share with 4 other people. I have been living like this since 2021. The utilities and groceries are a whole other can of worms. I think I have seen enough.

By the way, where do you live? It sounds nice to live over there...

Nancy Reading wrote:I think converting trees (or other cellulose matter) into sugars is a really interesting thought. Maybe, as others have said, for food, but how about a step on the way to biofuels? Could you make a permi-future with renewable bioethanol - crack that on a viable scale and the oil barons will hate you...





source

It looks like there is a fair amount of research going on in that direction already.

Yes, that was actually one of my inspirations. YouTuber "NileRed" made some alcohol from toilet paper, which meant he was making a glucose intermediate, which is theoretically edible.

But I don't think any amount of forest can replace our current stream of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels were made over millions of years. I doubt the trees, which lose energy from direct sunlight, can match that.

Humanity is due for an energy shock. We simply cannot harness enough energy from sunlight alone to sustain our lifestyles. We are like the teenager high on credit card debt. Look up "Earth Overshoot Day" if you are interested.

Steve Zoma wrote:It kind of is already being done. It’s called black liquor and while it takes a special recovery boiler to burn that fuel, it produces a lot of megawatts. The local one to me is some 12 stories tall.

Black liquor is created during the Kraft making
Process and back when the USA was given out carbon credits for producing biofuels, many paper companies were making good money on the biofuel designation by burning the alcohols coming out of their processed woods. Because of the tenbicality of biofuels producing so much power for the grid, it was one reason why they had to stop paying biofuel subsidies.

Incidentally the largest producer of this kind of energy does not come in tree form or corn, but cattails. Whereas corn can produce 400 gallons per acre, cattails gets a whopping 600 gallons per acre. Minnesota alone could produce enough fuel without using crop land to power itself and many states besides.

Interesting!

My main concern is being able to eat that cellulose to fuel our bodies.

But can black liquor be fed to animals perhaps? We aren't going to eat their livers anyway. If black liquor can increase amino acid and fat production in non-herbivores such as chickens, that would be truly revolutionary.

I think stockpiling food is essential.  For me, it is only being responsible to be prepared to feed my family for years without outside help.    We have bags and barrels of grains and legumes.   Tons of dried, stored food, salt and fat.    I don’t want to eat that stuff myself though.   That is just to give me a cushion so I don’t worry.  


I want to eat out of my garden whenever possible.

 If you are what you eat, I want my food to be the highest, most vibrant materials that I can produce or procure.

We can only eat so much food each day.   I like to get as much nutrition as I can.

I think permaculture paints a picture for us to create carefree, perennial food growing systems.  

If you build a Hugelkulture bed and populate it with perennials you like to eat, you can have food coming back year after year and you don’t have to do much work.    Maybe try sun-chokes, they probably have a fair amount of cellulose.


This movie will give you all the info you need to get started with Hugelkulture!
https://permies.com/wiki/52912/World-Domination-Gardening-movie-set#430190



You can add a lot of nutrition and resilience to your system by running animals but they do take more care.

Sheep and rabbits do a great job of turning trees into human food.   You don’t have to eat them, just letting the plant material pass through the animal kingdom has great benefit to the land, the gardener and makes the minerals more bioavailable in the foods you grow.  


I have found the systems I create are much easier to maintain the closer they are to nature.  
Although the processes you are describing of cellulose to glucose may work to provide human sustenance, it seems like it is a long way from nature.   While we humans are amazing creatures, resilient and adaptable, to me, all this extra complication makes it systemically weak, even if it is possible.  


I think there is a lot to be said for what is fun for you.  What brings you joy?  

I like to be barefoot in the garden and watch my animals graze the hills.   I like to eat food and wear clothes made by my own hands.

What do you want to spend the moments of your life doing?

Trace Oswald wrote:For me, it seems planting a big garden is far simpler, more satisfying, and certainly ends up with a product that is much better tasting to eat.  Burra mentioned food forests that can round out many of the missing nutrients and flavors.  Add some chickens and you have all areas of nutrition covered.  I think in this case, natural is much better than an overly complex method that allows me to eat wood.

I frankly don't see the satisfaction from work, but I agree the taste would be much better. Still, if I can make a society with people who work perhaps 2 hours a week, and who devote the rest of their time to science, engineering, and maths research, I think it could serve as a refugee for many creatives.

Natural comes with many caveats. I do not trust the climate or the insects or the fungi, as they have proven to be anti-human. It only takes one bad flood or hurricane to wipe out a food forest for a few years.

Thom Bri wrote:My point being, food is super cheap. Attempting to reduce your participation in the economy by extreme methods is unnecessary. A minimum wage worker need only work 33 hours to cover basic yearly food needs eating mainly grain and beans.

Wage slavery is mainly about other things. A car, a house, entertainment, a girlfriend, fashionable clothing, exotic foods. Social needs, in other words. Food in itself is so cheap in modern America as to be hardly an issue.

You are correct. I made calculations about 3 years ago, and the rice and beans for 80 years would cost ~$20,000 without shipping. The shipping and storage are the bottlenecks but still very affordable.

But anywhere in developed America, it is impossible to get a studio for less than $1000. Even in some rural wasteland, rents will likely still go for $600 minimum, and that would be a very good deal. I remember in Charlottesville, Virginia, before the pandemic, I had a large 2 bed with individual bathrooms for a mere $1100 a month. I don't think such deals exist anymore, not to mention C'ville had little in the way of jobs (it was a typical college town).

So what do we work for if not food? As you mentioned, we work for our homes I suppose. But then could we go into the wilderness with near-free rents while using cheap American food? The wilderness tends to be littered with food deserts; in other words, I personally observe that cheap food and cheap rents are mutually exclusive.

You cannot work a minimum wage job somewhere in West Virginia while paying $600 rent because they have no such jobs in the first place and the distribution networks there are very poor. The only places with affordable rents are areas with no jobs or stores, not even minimum wage ones, and the only vendor in town is likely a Dollar General.

If one were living off of public assistance I suppose they could trek to a Walmart 30 minutes away, although then you would need at least a car since low-rent areas tend to have poor public transportation. If you use public transportation, the amount of time it eats up becomes so much that it becomes its own little job, which is why food deserts become such an issue. And if you possess a car, fuel costs will eat into your savings despite the US government subsidizing our fuel, mainly because of the remote and rural location.

There is a reason the US government can ostensibly subsidize the food, it is because we pay for it in other ways unknowingly. Remote areas with cheap rents but low populations will pay the fair price of food via transportation premiums and the lack of economies of scale. But in the areas with economies of scale, they take away your potential gains via rent-seeking anyway.

It looks almost impossible to win. That is why I am trying to disconnect from society. A memorable movie once quipped: "The only winning move is not to play." That's how I and many in my generation feel today.

Samantha Lewis wrote:I think stockpiling food is essential.  For me, it is only being responsible to be prepared to feed my family for years without outside help.    We have bags and barrels of grains and legumes.   Tons of dried, stored food, salt and fat.    I don’t want to eat that stuff myself though.   That is just to give me a cushion so I don’t worry.  


I want to eat out of my garden whenever possible.

 If you are what you eat, I want my food to be the highest, most vibrant materials that I can produce or procure.

We can only eat so much food each day.   I like to get as much nutrition as I can.

I think permaculture paints a picture for us to create carefree, perennial food growing systems.  

If you build a Hugelkulture bed and populate it with perennials you like to eat, you can have food coming back year after year and you don’t have to do much work.    Maybe try sun-chokes, they probably have a fair amount of cellulose.


This movie will give you all the info you need to get started with Hugelkulture!
https://permies.com/wiki/52912/World-Domination-Gardening-movie-set#430190



You can add a lot of nutrition and resilience to your system by running animals but they do take more care.

Sheep and rabbits do a great job of turning trees into human food.   You don’t have to eat them, just letting the plant material pass through the animal kingdom has great benefit to the land, the gardener and makes the minerals more bioavailable in the foods you grow.  


I have found the systems I create are much easier to maintain the closer they are to nature.  
Although the processes you are describing of cellulose to glucose may work to provide human sustenance, it seems like it is a long way from nature.   While we humans are amazing creatures, resilient and adaptable, to me, all this extra complication makes it systemically weak, even if it is possible.  


I think there is a lot to be said for what is fun for you.  What brings you joy?  

I like to be barefoot in the garden and watch my animals graze the hills.   I like to eat food and wear clothes made by my own hands.

What do you want to spend the moments of your life doing?

Stockpiling is indeed a smart strategy. There is a reason why almost every nation stockpiles grains and oil.

I suppose in a cellulose-based society where everyone has food and housing security and lots of unused time, they could take up gardening for fun, making Hugelkultur beds as fit. In such a world, I think most gardening would be for personal tastes (ex. wanting basil pizza, salads, or various fruits), while cellulose-derived glucose could be used as a staple, or be fed to animals to obtain their milk and blood. Perhaps sunchokes can be grown as vitamin supplements, to replace my vision of stockpiling pills.

I considered sheep and rabbits. They are indeed excellent in converting grass to human food, but I believe another poster pointed out lignin in wood, which doesn't do well in the sheep, cow, or rabbit gut. Interestingly, moose can digest small twigs, but sadly the Swedes, Russians, and Alaskans have all failed to domesticate them, only semi-domesticating them for milk. At least, that is from my research. Were you able to sustain animals using pure wood? Many times the literature tends to be blockheaded and dismissive of farmers' observations which are closer to reality.

I think we must be cautious in seeing nature as anything other than a tool, and a complex one at that. If a goat was sick, I doubt I could navigate its "machinery" without bringing over a vet, who will bring over a slew of diagnostic tools. The guise of simplicity hides the fact that the animals are very complex machines (even more so than cars, in fact) and the only reason they seem simple is because they can care for themselves. Personally, I think chemical plants, while very far from nature, capture the essence of the cellular automata that sustain us. After all, what is a cell but a chemical vat filled with various chemical reactions?

If I had trouble at a chemical plant, I would have a much easier time debugging it than treating a single animal patient. You only need industry experience and an undergraduate engineering degree for chemical plants, but animals? You need a doctoral degree. I value the simplicity of the chemicals more than the complexity of the animal and living plant, even if it means my products will feel very sad and lifeless.

I just want to sleep all day, as the lucid dream world is very engaging. Perhaps one day, everyone's own ideal lives can come true.

Mr. Young, I wonder if you have started with a conclusion and are looking to cherry pick ideas that support it. Personally I think that is an ineffective way to advance knowledge.

The methods of converting raw materials into food for humans, frankly, span thousands of years. They involve plants and animals in a loose symbiotic relationship. Many people here are trying to make this old knowledge available to other people wherever they live. No politics, only better living and richer soil via the labour of our hands. This benefits everyone, everywhere. My 2c.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:Mr. Young, I wonder if you have started with a conclusion and are looking to cherry pick ideas that support it. Personally I think that is an ineffective way to advance knowledge.

The methods of converting raw materials into food for humans, frankly, span thousands of years. They involve plants and animals in a loose symbiotic relationship. Many people here are trying to make this old knowledge available to other people wherever they live. No politics, only better living and richer soil via the labour of our hands. This benefits everyone, everywhere. My 2c.

Yes, I do understand this. However, the plants and animals, aren't they middlemen that take up energy in their conversion? If we could eliminate them and feed another human using the gains, why not?

I researched for many hours to see if others tried to make a society off of cellulose-to-glucose conversion. Nobody seems to have tried yet.

Your reasoning is sound: thousands of years of agricultural innovation, but nobody has attempted such a society, so there must be some crucial defect. But I beg to differ. The cellulase enzyme was discovered in the 1950s, and food/housing was always a problem, so there should have been many before me who tried to make a cellulose society, and I see none. I suspect someone in the 1970s or 1980s ideated such a thing, but I could not find any documented attempts. This community is the closest that has gotten to such ideas, via concepts such as coppicing.

Labor is a good thing, it sharpens the mind. But if we could live in a world where labor could be drastically reduced by a ubiquitous molecule as a food source, why not? That is my wonder. Many posters above have given me crucial insight, which I am very thankful for.

I apologize if I portrayed any politics. I will be more cautious from now on.

" Let food be thy medicine, and let cellulose be the foundation of a nourishing and healthy diet."
       - Hippocrates ( Father of Medicine )

J. Juniper wrote:" Let food be thy medicine, and let cellulose be the foundation of a nourishing and healthy diet."
       - Hippocrates ( Father of Medicine )

Indeed, the great thinkers already knew...

Kenji Miyazawa famously remarked: "우리는 원하는 만큼 얼음사탕을 갖지는 못해도 맑고 깨끗한 바람을 먹고 아름다운 복숭아색 아침 햇살을 마실 수는 있습니다. 저는 또 허름하게 해진 옷이 숲속이나 논밭에서 세상 가장 훌륭한 벨벳과 모직물과 보석 박힌 옷으로 변하는 것을 종종 보았습니다…저는 그런 멋진 음식과 옷을 좋아합니다…여기 적힌 저의 이야기는 모두 숲과 들과 철도선로에서 무지개와 달빛으로부터 받은 것입니다….하지만 이 작은 이야기의 조각들이 마침내는, 당신을 위한 맑고 깨끗한 식량이 되기를 제가 얼마나 바라는지 모릅니다." (Translated to Korean from the original Japanese excerpt)

In English, he said: "Even though we cannot have as many ice candies as we’d like, we can eat the fresh, clear wind and drink the beautiful peach-colored morning sunlight. I’ve often seen my worn, shabby clothes transform into the finest velvet, wool, and jewel-studded garments in the forest or fields. I love such wonderful food and clothing... All the stories written here were gifted from the forest, fields, and railways, from rainbows and moonlight. I can't tell you how much I hope that these small pieces of story will eventually become a source of pure and clear sustenance for you."

It is a shame many in the English world, or even outside of Japan, do not know of his works or life. He had quite an interesting life, you can see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oButcxgnXcU&ab_channel=Ars_Arcantum

I live in Maine and grew up with Matt McSpadden in real life, LONG before we ever connected on-line again here.

You should really real Paul's article on "Gert" a fictional woman who used permaculture to really get ahead. I did likewise, never playing the financial game called credit, using cash instead, and instead of endlessly watching funny cat videos on Youtube, spent it listening to people like Dave Ramsey and Charlie Munger who flood youtube with how they did life.

I retired at 42 years old and was a Gert living entirely off my farm. I did life a bit different then Gert, as this year I cashed out, selling my former farm but was VERY selective to whom I sold parts of it off too.

I did get cancer and return to the workforce in 2022, but life is much different when you don't have to work. There is appreciation for the virtues of a routine, and comradery with your co-workers.  Then when you run the numbers... well... is it any wonder Dave Ransey says, "your ability to work is where wealth comes from". As I showed, working has a 2500% return on investment for me.

I disagree with others about having lots of land. It is nice in some aspects, but a liability in others. Now that I have just a little, I am not tied down to any place and thus can pick up and move. We are looking at that now, Sell the house worth $400,000 we bought two years ago, buy a new house for $100,000 working at the same company but 150 miles away, then in 15 years when I need the money, $300,000 will have amounted to 1.4 million with compounded interest.  The math is easy to do. But who wants to move in the middle of nowhere? Me, because the bigger the risk, the bigger the reward, especially so when you do things others would never do.

The hard part is finding the house. But if you chose carefully, you can pick well. My current house is only an acre in size, but around me is Conservation Land of 2500 acres. It is not like having full ownership, but I pay property taxes on 1 acre, and can forage on 2500 acres for free. Life is NEVER about how much you make, but how much you spend.

The thing is, I never did anything special. I just figured out quickly what Gert did; the only way to win is to just not play the game. Sure I got bullied along the way, but by not playing, I won, and won big and very early in life. Others can too, but the question is: when are you, and other people on Permies, going to take big risks? NOTHING ever big came out of being in a comfort zone. It can be as simple as getting out of bed and going to work, or making that big move?

Young Jun Lee wrote:Kenji Miyazawa

I may have posted this here (it is such a permie poem) but I never let pass a chance to share my favorite poem by this great author and philosopher.
Miyazawa was deeply concerned with land, health, society, education, morality and beliefs.... while he wrote a lot for publication this poem was found in his personal scratch notebook after his death, and even so is probably his best known work, called "Ame ni makezu", never beaten by the rain.
I learned it in calligraphy classes (it's often written in a very "different" hand than normal Japanese calligraphy that is hard to describe but  can be chaotic, wild and very emotional), copying it hundreds of times, and it still touches my heart every time I read it.

Unbeaten by the rain
Unbeaten by the wind
Bested by neither snow nor summer heat
Strong of body
Free of desire
Never angry
Always smiling quietly
Dining daily on four cups of brown rice
Some miso and a few vegetables
Observing all things
Leaving myself out of account
But remembering well
Living in a small, thatched-roof house
In the meadow beneath a canopy of pines
Going east to nurse the sick child
Going west to bear sheaves of rice for the weary mother
Going south to tell the dying man there is no cause for fear
Going north to tell those who fight to put aside their trifles
Shedding tears in time of drought
Wandering at a loss during the cold summer
Called useless by all
Neither praised
Nor a bother
Such is the person
I wish to be

(from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ame_ni_mo_makezu, a slightly more poetic translation can be found here

Miyazawa was deeply concerned with where society was going, but his focus was on the people around him.
I share many of the OP's concerns about where it's all going. I think many of us do here. But I think a lot of us haven't given up on community yet. It can be a long, tired slog alone, even if we don't have to worry about finding food we still have other needs to fill.

(thanks for a chance to start my day talking about Miyazawa!)

I think maybe part of the issue stems from different ideas of freedom. The OP's idea of freedom sounds like sitting in a bunker, not doing much, eating "wood goo". BTW< Would it really be goo? Crystallized sugar? I'm curious as to how this product made from wood would actually turn out. Anyway, that's not my idea of freedom, it sounds miserable to me. And that's not to knock the OP, if that sort of situation is what he desires, then by all means I hope he attains it. Freedom for me is to be able to own (mostly wild) land, with the ability to not go to a 9-5 job, and provide all my own food, spending my time working with my wife and kids, with nobody telling me how to run my life. Perhaps that sounds miserable to the OP, I don't know. But everyone has their own ideas of "freedom".

Young Jun Lee wrote: Fundamentally, I see nature as a tyrannical force which aims to screw us over at every step.

I would just like to say, I'm so very glad I don't share this point of view.  I see Nature as an ally, a giver of things, a companion, a source of food and wonder and beauty.  Forgive me if I misread or misinterpreted anything you said, but this forum seems to be ill-fitted for you.  I think the people here want to grow things, build things, improve the world, work with Nature and all of her challenges, not see her as an adversary that is attempting to crush us at every turn.  If you have no interest in anything of these things, this seems an odd choice for spending your time.

Tereza Okava wrote:
Miyazawa was deeply concerned with where society was going, but his focus was on the people around him.
I share many of the OP's concerns about where it's all going. I think many of us do here. But I think a lot of us haven't given up on community yet. It can be a long, tired slog alone, even if we don't have to worry about finding food we still have other needs to fill.

(thanks for a chance to start my day talking about Miyazawa!)

I admire Miyazawa, and had he been born in a more technologically advanced time, I believe he would have changed the world. He had the precursors of my cellulose society vision, but unfortunately, he passed away before the discovery of the cellulase enzyme. I am merely continuing his unfinished work, as well as the emphasis on simplicity and decentralization as advised by Ted Kaczynski, Manu Prakash, and many others.

Miyazawa's entire life is still a cautionary tale, the lesson I got is that it is better to be alone than to be with the ignorant and uneducated. The many people of this Earth are born of unfortunate circumstances, and they indeed deserve their woes relieved. Still, it is not my job to help them, nor was I born in such fortunate circumstances as Miyazawa. Personally, I find no reason to tolerate their presence as the world does not reward people for dealing with negativity, only rewarding us for giving others positivity.

It does not help that the world allocates me the ignorant and uneducated (even the professors speak broken English and refuse to teach or even answer questions), to the point where my only pathway to greater knowledge is the internet, all while denying me elite positions. I tried to focus on improving the community, but the world proved to me it would never give me the fair share of my efforts. Then, it is time to divest from the world.

Perhaps the billionaires and elites of the world can rehabilitate them, but they are only interested in their own. They also seem to be quite well off despite their negligence. The lesson then, portrayed by this world, seems very simple.

From my experience, people do not change, and people are a lost cause. The job of the kind should be to protect the kind with any means possible, not to rehabilitate the unkind. It is why I love Miyazawa for his efforts and poems, but I still fundamentally disagree with his philosophies.

It is wise of all of you to focus on community. Perhaps if I can circumvent the world's limitations, I can also gather like-minded people. Thank you for showing me that beautiful poem.

Hi Young,
I think it would be really cool if you were to go through the process of converting cellulose to sugars and take pictures and share them (maybe in their own post). I think it is a cool process, and I would love to see it done in real life.