Feeding ourselves with cellulose

The comparison of using a lab vs using a kitchen may seem valid on the surface, but the end results are very different. Spending a day preparing and cooking a stew ends in having a nutritionally complete, satiating, satisfying, calming, psychologically and biologically beneficial meal. Spending a day preparing and breaking down cellulose ends in having a pile of sugar.

Kevin Olson wrote:Young -
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Back to the liver: metabolizing large quantities of fructose (sugary beverages are the primary culprit, but it's in all manner of packaged foods) will lead to fatty liver disease and sclerosis (the same sort of damage seen in chronic alcoholics).  I've heard of cases of children as young 12 years of age presenting with fatty liver disease and sclerosis.  Not only will there be the potential for the poor metabolic health downstream, but also for permanent liver damage.

Please (please!) be very careful with long-term diets high in fructose.

I think I detect that your are moving toward a more typically "permie" position - pass the food stuff through something else first, before you eat it.
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That is very good advice, thank you for your input.

Yes, I think people's criticisms are valid, and eating sugar long term probably will lead to diabetes, or other chronic illnesses as you and others have pointed out. Perhaps then I can use just one intermediary, and a very efficient one at that, honeybees. That, or some form of snail bred in a parasite-free environment.

I am considering the potential impacts of using cellulose processing in tandem with animal husbandry. Perhaps the usage of wood glucose as animal feed (supplemented by grass and its micronutrients) can allow Brazilian ranchers to prevent deforesting, instead, coppicing the jungle wood (though they must be careful to make sure it's not poisonous). It may also allow the lessening of methane emissions by preventing cellulose fermentation in the first place.

https://www.fpl.fs.usda.gov/documnts/pdf1975/baker75a.pdf

Fred Frank V Bur wrote:No one wants to be doing more work to reap the same amount. I am not sure about using any cellulose for all my dietary needs still. But farming is thought to be hard, but even without machinery it could be done much more easily than generally thought in our modern culture, and in other circumstances too, clearly. The Fukuoka method of natural farming would be much easier, I would try making use of having seedballs prepared for casting to the area where I want the plants from them to grow. There cannot be no work but I think living should not be such great work and effort to keep going. Having others in community should be for making things easier. But the way it has been it yet really isn't, still it could be, if with others this way.

The Fukuoka method sounds very interesting, I will check it out.

Thank you for your input, and I agree nobody should be living a hard life in this modern era.

I was also going to suggest that you read a little of Masanobu Fukuoka's work. He studied as a microbiologist and initially worked as a plant pathologist but spent most of his life working out how to farm in harmony with nature rather than trying to control it. If you can get hold of 'the one straw revolution' it is quite a quick read but I hope you would find it enlightening.

Interesting thinking. 1 quite important point is missing thus far, though. FUNGI are the a main nature's decomposers of cellulose. They, as well as the process, are vital for the health and stability of the whole / (eco-)system and health and wellbeing of individual, alike. Trying to by-pass this important component of the whole-system design would come at a great energy cost and dire consequences.
The least is you need varied diet, with vitamins, oils, aminoacids, minerals, etc., not only carbs/calories.

Linden Sai wrote:Interesting thinking. 1 quite important point is missing thus far, though. FUNGI are the a main nature's decomposers of cellulose. They, as well as the process, are vital for the health and stability of the whole / (eco-)system and health and wellbeing of individual, alike. Trying to by-pass this important component of the whole-system design would come at a great energy cost and dire consequences.
The least is you need varied diet, with vitamins, oils, aminoacids, minerals, etc., not only carbs/calories.

I would be using the same enzyme used by the fungi, cellulase. In fact, since the human can pocket all of the glucose without paying it for fungal growth, we can get more calories overall.

Sugar can be converted to vitamins, oils, amino acids, etc. using chemical processes. Minerals are trace, so not much stockpiling will be needed.

I have two contrasting visions: scale this up and make a new way of life, or use this technology on a small scale for my 80-year personal bunker. The former would require me to care about the ecosystem, but the latter doesn't. I am going for the latter option, as humanity is not ready to change. The latter option also allows less engineering due to the small-scale nature.

Thank you for your input.

Young Jun Lee wrote:Sugar can be converted to vitamins, oils, amino acids, etc. using chemical processes. Minerals are trace, so not much stockpiling will be needed.

My understanding was that sugar can only be converted into SOME amino acids, and more to the point some of the NON-ESSENTIAL ones. Carbohydrates contain carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. Proteins also need nitrogen, sulphur, phosphorus and sometimes other elements too. They can't just be magicked up from sugar. I'd be very much looking for other sources of protein to go along with anything you can get from cellulose.

Burra Maluca wrote:
My understanding was that sugar can only be converted into SOME amino acids, and more to the point some of the NON-ESSENTIAL ones. Carbohydrates contain carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. Proteins also need nitrogen, sulphur, phosphorus and sometimes other elements too. They can't just be magicked up from sugar. I'd be very much looking for other sources of protein to go along with anything you can get from cellulose.

That is true. I believe the process can be modified to allow essential ones to be made also. I think you are referring to Strecker synthesis. However, you are correct that sulfur and nitrogen compounds would need to be supplied outside of the glucose. The nitrogen, I can see it being sourced from urine, and chlorine from stockpiled salt. Sulfur, I am less sure. Perhaps as elemental sulfur ore?

And how to make the exact needed aldehydes and ketones? I am even less sure.

But I know for sure that if I apply electricity in a specific way to a specific mixture, something will happen. That means theoretically, with enough electricity (or more broadly, energy), raw inedible materials (such as raw carbon, raw salt, raw sulfur, etc.), and the correct procedure, it must be possible to make those amino acids without using organic life (such as bacteria). Just like inedible wood has been converted to glucose, so can inedible carbon, ammonia, sulfur, etc. be converted to food, likely.

Now, what exactly is this procedure, and what conditions must I use to make amino acids? Further research is needed, and the Strecker synthesis will be my starting point.

Many here will not understand my contempt for organic life, but I fundamentally see humanity as being caught up in an evil cycle where we must harm other beings to survive. I am very troubled by this. I also do not trust life, as it is unpredictable, which is why I am trying not to use bacteria to synthesize amino acids, despite them being able to make them from glucose. I also see the fungi as fundamentally self-serving entities that will turn against us once they become energetically desperate.

I see more hope for vitamins, such as the Reichstein process for synthesizing vitamin C. At the very least, I won't get scurvy!

Hopefully, mankind can separate itself from Animalia, Fungi, Archaea, Bacteria, and Plantae. I yearn for a day when no animal, fungi, or bacteria will be present, so no entity will suffer for our sake and no human will suffer for theirs.