As a scientist I invent a bacteria that can live in the human gut and process cellulose for us. Yay! No more world hunger as everyone can eat grass and get glucose from it. I spray it all over the world so eventually everyone will have this bacteria in their system.
What are the unintended results?
Since this is not a factual question, let’s move it to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
It isn’t just the bacteria you need, but an entire new anatomy. If you want to get sufficient nutrition from grass, you would have to eat enormous amounts of it and keep it in your stomach for a long time as it ferments. You would spend a lot more of your time eating and chewing. It would, however, fit in with the modern sedentary lifestyle.
The world’s sanitation departments will get greatly increased operating budgets.
Demand for fossil fuels as heating would plummet as due to the effects of having a an *in vivo *fermentation vat operating at around 39C (102F) .
Demand for perfumes and fragrances, after an initial colossal spike would collapse.
Toilets would need to be redesigned to allow for greatly increased capacity. Presuming the same flush mechanism was used, demand for water would go up dramatically.
Trouser with fitted with rear flaps would go from *haute couture * to standard issue.
I’ve read a scifi novel or a short story with this theme ages ago. Sadly I can’t remember the name, but I do remember the main result being hungry Africans eating everything and turning the whole continent into a desert.
Global warming would spike as humans began to release methane.
Home fires would increase, once people began to light their belches, accidentally and/or on purpose.
Possession of herbicides would get a lot more complex, legally and morally.
Explosions would become more common, as more people began to farm and, therefore, store nitrogen-based fertilizers in stupid conditions.
The price of grass goes up due to overwhelming demand. We end up paying what the market will bear, the same as we do now.
It would be odd for a suburban home to have a lawn - like cultivating corn in your front yard.
This thread is cracking me up. We’d truly become ***SHEEPLE!!! ***
Grass tastes pretty bad, in my experience.
New restaurants would spring up, offering Kentucky bluegrass, tall fescue, ryegrass, Bermuda grass, with sweetgrass for dessert.
The job market for dentists would explode if you are imagining people actually consuming grass. Even cooked, grass is tough and abrasive and will require a lot of chewing. Human teeth would wear out fairly early in life on such a diet. Better to finely mill the cellulose material and mix it in with other foodstuffs as an extender.
Not to mention that lots of plants are distasteful or toxic and the ability to digest cellulose won’t change that.
There are a metric shitton of scientific discoveries that never go anywhere, but people are already working on this (although their work on breaking up and rebuilding cellulose is done in a lab and not in a person’s stomach).
No idea what the unintended consequence would be. A bushel of corn can support a person for about 2 months and costs about $4.
What was the name of ancient Greek philosopher who speculated about the possibility of people not needing food but being able to satisfy their hunger by looking at food and rubbing their stomach?
Diogenes? I think he was being facetious because he was caught jacking off. I think he posts here too.
I think it was Digestenes.
>> Diogenes?
Thanks – I will look him up.
The chem trail nuts would finally be able to say “See, I told you so”. You would pave the road for all the other conspiracy theorists to get louder and nuttier.