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A recent scientific study suggests that a vegan diet produces much more food (including almost double the protein) for a particular area of land: "Imagine an area of land that can produce 100 grams of edible protein from plants. If you take that same amount of land and use it to produce eggs instead, you would end up with only 60 grams of edible protein — an "opportunity food loss" of 40%, the study authors found". There is even less protein from eating chicken, beef and pigs. http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-more-food-vegan-20180326-story.html

This suggests a vegan diet is a very realistic possibility unless the Imperium can genetically modify animals, or discover new ones, which allow for more efficient farming.

On some shrine world maybe its possible? But for most forge, death, fortress, worlds you eat the glorious nutrient paste provided to you by the impirium made with love and care.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
On some shrine world maybe its possible? But for most forge, death, fortress, worlds you eat the glorious nutrient paste provided to you by the impirium made with love and care.

delicious nutrition paste.

all the nutrition, non of the flavor.

pretty sure its going to be a ton of simple biomass like plants and algae

Deathworlds like catachan... well im pretty sure they can eat whatever they can catch.

everyone else probably subsidize their rations with whatever they can get locally as well.

probably a lot of rodent meat.

There are definitely Imperial planets that have ruled out animal protein as too inefficient for mass distribution and instead go all in on legumes, lentils, mushrooms, nuts, tofu etc.

kingleir wrote:

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
That gave me the mental image of an entire shrine world where vegetarianism is enforced with the death penalty to anyone eating meat. Knowing the Imperium, there probably is such a world.

Every slice of the knife, a salute to death itself. Khorne cares not from where the blood flows, your steak will do.


I can just imagine Khorne vacationing at its steak throne.

Followers of Khorne would eat steak but not as a preference. Obviously the foods most pleasing to Khorne is made out of blood and innards. A planet ruled by a Khornate culture would prefer black pudding, beef marrow broth ramen topped with grilled slices of beef heart or spicy chicken heart stiry fry.

I put it to you that Agri-worlds have millions of permanent resident farmers each that all eat a pretty much vegan diet consisting of real, actual, vegetables. As noted above, plant-grown food is more efficient per unit landmass than animals, so for efficiency's sake (and to ensure a surplus in case of destroyed Agri-worlds) most produce would be in that form. Some of this produce will get turned into nutrient paste, but this is a process that reduces the immediate efficiency of a food product unless you need to store it for a long time or combine it with other things for some reason. This means that for maximal efficiency, farmers would be eating from their own live crops, plus some neighbouring produce for variety if possible. Since we know that you need lots of Agri-worlds in the IOM, and that these will need planetary-scale maintenance and harvesting methods that could only conceivably operate with millions of attendant farmers, there are certain to be a huge number of people (in absolute terms) that get to eat a locally-sourced fresh vegan diet.

 Selym wrote:
I put it to you that Agri-worlds have millions of permanent resident farmers each that all eat a pretty much vegan diet consisting of real, actual, vegetables. As noted above, plant-grown food is more efficient per unit landmass than animals, so for efficiency's sake (and to ensure a surplus in case of destroyed Agri-worlds) most produce would be in that form. Some of this produce will get turned into nutrient paste, but this is a process that reduces the immediate efficiency of a food product unless you need to store it for a long time or combine it with other things for some reason. This means that for maximal efficiency, farmers would be eating from their own live crops, plus some neighbouring produce for variety if possible. Since we know that you need lots of Agri-worlds in the IOM, and that these will need planetary-scale maintenance and harvesting methods that could only conceivably operate with millions of attendant farmers, there are certain to be a huge number of people (in absolute terms) that get to eat a locally-sourced fresh vegan diet.

Two things I'm depressed to actually have read enough BL fiction to know:

1) Every time BL describes what's in Nutrient paste there is one common ingredient: People. You die working ont he farm, they throw your but into the next shipment. Worse, the one description I can find of harvesting techniques involved a giant combine that consumed the vegetables, plants, wild animals and whatever else happen to be in the fields at the time. The thing that always bugs me is that they never describe undressing the corpses before feeding them in. I wonder if a child occasionally find a partially shredded bone or bionic part in their morning paste and considers it a prize...

2) Most nutrient paste descriptions (aside from corpse-starch) list algae or fungus. This makes a lot of sense given how much more efficient than normal plants algae can be. You need less light, little to no arable ground, and for many types the water doesn't even have to be all that clean.

If algae farm paste with a little bit of your grandfather in it isn't Grimdark I don't know what is.

 ChargerIIC wrote:

 Selym wrote:
I put it to you that Agri-worlds have millions of permanent resident farmers each that all eat a pretty much vegan diet consisting of real, actual, vegetables. As noted above, plant-grown food is more efficient per unit landmass than animals, so for efficiency's sake (and to ensure a surplus in case of destroyed Agri-worlds) most produce would be in that form. Some of this produce will get turned into nutrient paste, but this is a process that reduces the immediate efficiency of a food product unless you need to store it for a long time or combine it with other things for some reason. This means that for maximal efficiency, farmers would be eating from their own live crops, plus some neighbouring produce for variety if possible. Since we know that you need lots of Agri-worlds in the IOM, and that these will need planetary-scale maintenance and harvesting methods that could only conceivably operate with millions of attendant farmers, there are certain to be a huge number of people (in absolute terms) that get to eat a locally-sourced fresh vegan diet.

Two things I'm depressed to actually have read enough BL fiction to know:

1) Every time BL describes what's in Nutrient paste there is one common ingredient: People. You die working ont he farm, they throw your but into the next shipment. Worse, the one description I can find of harvesting techniques involved a giant combine that consumed the vegetables, plants, wild animals and whatever else happen to be in the fields at the time. The thing that always bugs me is that they never describe undressing the corpses before feeding them in. I wonder if a child occasionally find a partially shredded bone or bionic part in their morning paste and considers it a prize...

2) Most nutrient paste descriptions (aside from corpse-starch) list algae or fungus. This makes a lot of sense given how much more efficient than normal plants algae can be. You need less light, little to no arable ground, and for many types the water doesn't even have to be all that clean.

If algae farm paste with a little bit of your grandfather in it isn't Grimdark I don't know what is.

That I think sums up the average Imperial Citizen's diet perfectly, and I'm sigging the last line

 ChargerIIC wrote:


2) Most nutrient paste descriptions (aside from corpse-starch) list algae or fungus. This makes a lot of sense given how much more efficient than normal plants algae can be. You need less light, little to no arable ground, and for many types the water doesn't even have to be all that clean.

Actually algae or fungus makes most sense if food is locally-produced on hiveworld/forgeworld. Agriworlds (numerous compared to hives or civiized worlds) - are sparsely populated and more low-tech (and by AM and ours measures pretty inefficient on anything but ROI/upkeep). So - unless we talk seaweeds - algae and especially funguse are out of question for most of them as they need controlled environment . OTOH animals like grox " possessed many useful traits, such as the ability to survive in almost any environment and to thrive on even the most indigestible food. Grox meat itself is also extremely palatable and nutritious, and nearly every single part of the beast is edible" - and need minimal human supervision most of the time outside herding them toward processing plant and controlled breeding.

PS As for 'corpse starch'...these people are descendants of space colonists whose first waves were flying generation ships with necessarily pretty short but efficient ecological cycles. I think lot of their ancestors would saw ground burial as outrageously wasteful and antisanitary practice while preffered reclamation methods would depend mostly on mastered technology and energy quotas (ie cremation vs low-energy biological breakdown). Well, nowadays Indians still fish on Ganges river - while dispersing (not always fully cremated) ashes in it as burial...

chyron wrote:

 ChargerIIC wrote:


2) Most nutrient paste descriptions (aside from corpse-starch) list algae or fungus. This makes a lot of sense given how much more efficient than normal plants algae can be. You need less light, little to no arable ground, and for many types the water doesn't even have to be all that clean.

Actually algae or fungus makes most sense if food is locally-produced on hiveworld/forgeworld. Agriworlds (numerous compared to hives or civiized worlds) - are sparsely populated and more low-tech (and by AM and ours measures pretty inefficient on anything but ROI/upkeep). So - unless we talk seaweeds - algae and especially funguse are out of question for most of them as they need controlled environment . OTOH animals like grox " possessed many useful traits, such as the ability to survive in almost any environment and to thrive on even the most indigestible food. Grox meat itself is also extremely palatable and nutritious, and nearly every single part of the beast is edible" - and need minimal human supervision most of the time outside herding them toward processing plant and controlled breeding.

PS As for 'corpse starch'...these people are descendants of space colonists whose first waves were flying generation ships with necessarily pretty short but efficient ecological cycles. I think lot of their ancestors would saw ground burial as outrageously wasteful and antisanitary practice while preffered reclamation methods would depend mostly on mastered technology and energy quotas (ie cremation vs low-energy biological breakdown). Well, nowadays Indians still fish on Ganges river - while dispersing (not always fully cremated) ashes in it as burial...

Well, some agri-worlds use hydroponics and sound very high tech, so I think it varies on the agri world.

 ChargerIIC wrote:

1) Every time BL describes what's in Nutrient paste there is one common ingredient: People.

Soylens viridiens is people! Spread the word.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
I was watching Gordon Ramsay's Great Escape and in the third episode he visits a location where they only eat vegetarian meals (According to the video, you can't even rent an apartment there without adhering to a veggie diet). That got me wondering; are there vegetarians in 40k? We've heard about Corpsestarch and Soylent Veridians, but are there factions or worlds that adhere solely to a veggie diet?

On that note, do Orks count as Vegetarian/vegan? They eat squigs and gretchin, but since those are fungus-based lifeforms, wouldn't that technically make them vegetarians (or even vegans, since there's no "animal" products)?

I expect most eat some form of protien bars and the like. Meat isn't that rare in the Imperium, but neither are foods that could be classed as veggie. But I expect it depends on what world you're on. Some will be heavily veggie, some heavily meat eating, some a decent mix and some barely get any food at all and just eat each other. It likely depends on the affluence, location and importance of the world as to what the average citizen will eat but unless you're nobility then choice isn't going to be one of the factors at play.

As for the Orks question... Mind blown. I think that if they are fungus based then it's vegan. But they're also cannibals. So...Rise of the green cannibal vegans.

 Lion of Caliban wrote:


As for the Orks question... Mind blown. I think that if they are fungus based then it's vegan. But they're also cannibals. So...Rise of the green cannibal vegans.

Orks - as other xenos - are outside current 'normal' definitions. And anything in orkoid ecology is chimeric way we has no real definition for.

But there's something form Holy Terra to think about:
https://gizmodo.com/scientists-just-found-a-completely-new-kind-of-symbioti-1794811939
https://www.amnh.org/explore/news-blogs/research-posts/salamander-symbiosis-stresses-green-algae/

And spotted salamanders are definitely animals...

I don't think orks are strictly vegan.
While I'm sure they can happily subsist on assorted squigs, I'm pretty sure there's fluff showing they're more than happy to eat anything else they can get their hands on too. For instance human prisoners.

I remember several mentions of Orks eating humans in their 5th edition codex, sooooooooo no....


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh yeah and "Da Beast" actually farmed human meat on conquered human worlds. Some Iron Warriors actually attacked one of these worlds not knowing the Orks had already taken it and even they were disgusted by what they saw.