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How do!

So if you’ve been around Dakka for a while, you’ll know I love my background deep dives. But, I rarely veer into entirely uncharted territory.

Which is where this thread is going to go.

See, Nids eat us, and make more Nids. But……can we eat Nids? Because when a hive fleet is driven off, there’s a lot of unreclaimed Xenos flesh.

And maybe they’re like Lobster and other crustaceans, with the chitinous carapace then “tasty meats”.

Right, off you go! Debate and dispute and diatribe and maybe if you’ve eaten Nid diarrhoea!

Yes, but it's not a good idea - Kroot are forbidden from eating it as it doesn't end well for them when they do.

(There might be an old Space Wolf comic where they roast one, but I might have imagined that!)

Ahh, but are Kroot not a special case, as they can “kinda Nid” and adopt genetic info from their dindins?




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, Astartes can successfully digest plenty of stuff baseline humans can’t.

And it’s the “successfully” that counts. If it’s squirting from both ends it’s still digested. Just not successfully.

Yeah, as beast_gts said, iirc theres a bit of fluff from some time back where a group of Kroot ate some nids. It made them sick or something (iirc they started mutating or whatever out of control because the tyranid dna was basically taking them over from the inside out). Since then the shapers have declared it forbidden to eat the flesh of Tyranids, as its considered to be inedible and tainted.

Tyranid flesh is full of Tyranid phage cells, and many are highly toxic and/or acid.

You would have a better time trying to eat poisonous mushrooms*, at least you would only die of liver failure instead of being eaten from the inside out by phage cells and Tyranid acids.

*Please do not try to eat poisonous mushrooms, it is a very painful way to die.

Ahhh!

But!

There are many flora and fauna toxic and poisonous to us sad hoomans. But. If prepared in the right way, are considered delicacies.

Even Corn, basic Maize, needs some level of treatment before it’s worth a fig to us in dietary terms.

There a degrees of toxicity, no amount of treatment will make poisonous mushrooms edible.

I could see careful preparation making some* breeds of Tyranids edible to Space Marines, but standard humans are too fragile.

*But no amount of preparation will make the likes of Toxicrenes and Venomthropes edible. Those things are so toxic they can melt Plague Marines.

In the Com. Cain book "For the Emperor" the Kroot Shaper would take bites and spit them out, saying they were "tainted". It's only later that the groups realize it's a genestealer cult. Even Cain marvels that the Kroot can sense difference in genetics on an instinctual level just by taste. When Cain explains to the Kroot mercs what genestealers are, they go ballistic, because they're under the impression the pants stealers can take and steal THEIR genes- not realizing it takes the whole patriarch's "kiss" and subsequent generations.

As for other races, I think most would know to put Tyranid bodies into a plasma furnace, collect the ashes, put them in alcohol, set THAT on fire, put into a lead box and dump on an airless moon.
Just to be safe.
During all this, someone might think that cooking 'Nids sounds tasty and gets hungry and uninitiated cultures and races may eat them- but we don't hear the end results due to them mutating or just general lack of background. There's also the fact that races/ cultures that don't know about the 'Nids upon facing them die out fairly quickly.

Despite all that- I think some "species" of Tyranid may be eatable, but they are less removed from the normal warrior variants. For instance, some of the guns like fleshborers could be cooked.

I remember an old "Chapter Approved" article that was a Xenos biologis performing an autopsy on a 'gaunt, that went with this pic:



It noted that 'Nids have Exo and endoskeletons and various redundant systems- sooo.. may not have much "flesh" on them to eat in the first place.

the thing is if you start eating Tyranids and the Tyranids find out then you can bet they will do two things

1) Make themselves even MORE tasty to encourage people to consume more of them

2) Nestle some nasty in themselves so that all that tasty Tyranid meat does something to you over the long term.



Can you imagine a whole slew of noble lords. The upper ranks of a world or system. Dining on exotic imported Tyranid flesh - at great expense and secrecy. Steadily, day by day, year by year, being twisted, corrupted, changed from within; until they arise as genstealers. Part of a cult.

Perhaps they even "import" their own pactriarch; after all the most flavourful food would be killed most recently no freezing of old bodies; a 100% fresh, living Tyranid to kill in their own Kitchens. Only to awake that which lay dormant within them and in one foul night arises a cult at the very top of the social structure!

 Overread wrote:
the thing is if you start eating Tyranids and the Tyranids find out then you can bet they will do two things

1) Make themselves even MORE tasty to encourage people to consume more of them

2) Nestle some nasty in themselves so that all that tasty Tyranid meat does something to you over the long term.



Can you imagine a whole slew of noble lords. The upper ranks of a world or system. Dining on exotic imported Tyranid flesh - at great expense and secrecy. Steadily, day by day, year by year, being twisted, corrupted, changed from within; until they arise as genstealers. Part of a cult.

Perhaps they even "import" their own pactriarch; after all the most flavourful food would be killed most recently no freezing of old bodies; a 100% fresh, living Tyranid to kill in their own Kitchens. Only to awake that which lay dormant within them and in one foul night arises a cult at the very top of the social structure!

Okay, I *was* going to make a silly joke about the horrors of mass cases of the squits in the fortress-monastery, but this post here is a genuinely cool and quite unsettling concept for a legitimate 40K horror story so... yeah, not sure I can beat it!

I just remembered that the Ork method of eating is you eat it before it eats you- even a contest with the "Face Biter Squig"- so 'Nids would just be another challenge. In Ghaz's book, the blood axe interpreter's name translates out as "He who bites the face of that which tries to bite him first"- Shortened to Biter for rest of the novel. And if the Octarius war is any indication, when the resources get scare, Orks will happily eat Tyranids, and vice versa.

Orks do eat Tyranids, but Orks aren't immune to Tyranid toxins.

In the second book of the Octarius Warzone a Beast Snagga army is crippled that way as the Tyranids purposely feed the Orks and their Squits with highly toxic Tyranids.

 Overread wrote:
the thing is if you start eating Tyranids and the Tyranids find out then you can bet they will do two things

1) Make themselves even MORE tasty to encourage people to consume more of them

2) Nestle some nasty in themselves so that all that tasty Tyranid meat does something to you over the long term.



Can you imagine a whole slew of noble lords. The upper ranks of a world or system. Dining on exotic imported Tyranid flesh - at great expense and secrecy. Steadily, day by day, year by year, being twisted, corrupted, changed from within; until they arise as genstealers. Part of a cult.

Perhaps they even "import" their own pactriarch; after all the most flavourful food would be killed most recently no freezing of old bodies; a 100% fresh, living Tyranid to kill in their own Kitchens. Only to awake that which lay dormant within them and in one foul night arises a cult at the very top of the social structure!

Thinking more garden variety? Parasitic lifeforms. Ingested, pooped out, flushed away, and then begin to rapidly evolve. Think Squitty Rippers, eventually evolving into more commonly seen Tyranid lifeforms

Either could work and prove an interesting backdrop to an RPG.

in the third Ravenor novel, some tyrannid hormagaunts attack the group after they pass through a time portal (long story), and run rampant through the house the portal is in. they're depicted as having toxic, acidic blood and viscera.

Toxin sacs were an upgrade for most Tyranids for ages.

If the Catachans are to be believed, they dont drink milk as babies but rather pure tyranid venomthrope juice...


Other than that, as mentioned before Ork constitution lets them eat the average nid, I'm sure Dark Eldar probably try in some weird dominance attempt or at the very least feed it to slaves for some pain boost.

I would imagine eating Tyranid is like eating Puffer Fish.

Most of the Tyranid would be toxic and innediable. Due to toxins in the meat or chemical compounds that cause other issues.

But I would be willing to bet there is a slither of meat within the Tyranid itself that is edible and also devine.

Tyranids are a delacacy and require a licence to prepare.

There is also the further issue that tyranids are super dense (that's like the only way to explain their ability to cut and punch through metal plating) organisms.

Even if the toxins and acids and phage cells were removed, you would still be dealing with super hard muscles that are probably going to be painful to chew through and difficult to digest.

Proper preparation includes drying out the meat and then grinding it down until its a fine powder. You then mix it with essential oils, salts and other material into a fine paste.

You then feed this Paste into a 3D printer and it prints you out a delicious, moist, succulent steak.

 Tyran wrote:
There is also the further issue that tyranids are super dense (that's like the only way to explain their ability to cut and punch through metal plating) organisms.

Even if the toxins and acids and phage cells were removed, you would still be dealing with super hard muscles that are probably going to be painful to chew through and difficult to digest.

Maybe a low and slow braise, or use of a pressure cooker. Obviously going to be tougher then a lot of other meats, but there are ways to deal with that.

Might also be things like heavy metals and other substances. Who knows.

 Tyran wrote:
There is also the further issue that tyranids are super dense (that's like the only way to explain their ability to cut and punch through metal plating) organisms.

Even if the toxins and acids and phage cells were removed, you would still be dealing with super hard muscles that are probably going to be painful to chew through and difficult to digest.

If you can eat Mantis Shrimp I'm sure you can eat Tyranid.

I could crush a Mantis Shrimp with a pan, I could not crush a Termagant.

Depends entirely on the size of the pan and the power of your swing, surely?

A pan proportional in swing and size to the Termagant as a common or garden frying pan is to a Mantis Shrimp ought to do the job?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Depends entirely on the size of the pan and the power of your swing, surely?

A pan proportional in swing and size to the Termagant as a common or garden frying pan is to a Mantis Shrimp ought to do the job?

Same issue, as I doubt most people could lift - let alone effectively swing - a pan weighing north of 100 lbs, let alone the more realistic 300 lbs + such a pan would weigh.

That’s what Dreadnoughts are for?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
That’s what Dreadnoughts are for?

Even in death I still sauté

I suppose the answer to this requires an example from a book or something.

Wether they are edible by humans depends on the enzymes in the stomach being able to break down the proteins in the tryanid flesh.

For example horses and cows can digest grass but humans can’t because we can’t break it down in our stomachs.

I believe the space marines can eat almost anything because their stomach acid is like a tigers and can dissolve almost anything.

It’s a good question as to where imperial fleets get their food from on long journeys, do they take all their food with them or do the stop and harvest food from habitable planets on the way .

Soylens Viridiens, Corpse Starch and more regular supplies.

Exactly what a given element of the overall Imperial War Machine will eat is going to depend where they are, how long they’ve been travelling, and even their rank.

Think Napoleonic and you can’t go far wrong. Space Hard Tack and Pemmican for your basic infantry, maybe small beer and salt beef for your basic infantry, though possibly with a better understanding of nutrients. With fancier foods more readily available the higher up the ranks you are. All supplemented by forage, locally purchased food stuffs and even looted grub - if you wish to risk the ire of the locals and/or commissar.

Everything is edible. It's just that some things are only edible once.

Fluff-wise (at least in old editions), Tyrannids have an open circulatory system, so their insides are akin to a soup. The reason this works is that they have a special cell (or something analogous to a cell) that feeds them, repairs their injuries, etc. This cell, I think the tyrannocyte or something like that?, is a really nasty piece of work and was theorized to be what could mutate local flora and fauna and result in possible reinfestation or transforming the world into a death world on its own.

So presumably eating something like that could potentially end badly. Most likely reaction in humans would be death by sepsis, though I suppose it could cause things like insanity, organ failure, maybe just bleeding out of every pore and orifice.